Myosotis
by 4thespada-ulquiorra
Summary: Loki is struck quite literally with a case of highly justified amnesia, and soon finds himself in the somewhat sporadic care of one Peter Parker, who can't quite figure out why his new friend has the Avengers after his head or why Tony Stark keeps showing up wherever Loki goes- you know, for business and stuff .
1. Prologue Or Loki is Not a Nice Guy

"Remove his binds."

Very few times in history-human or otherwise- had three words had such staggering consequences. (Only thrice, in fact, had Asgard seen such an event and earth was lucky enough to know of only five recorded incidences- none of which, thank you very much, involved a declaration of love. This was mostly due to the human's inability to take emotion seriously, but in part because it was so easy to make excuses if the other party appeared less interested than was exactly _ideal_.) And during none of those times before had said consequences spread between realms, not to Asgard or Midgard or Helheim or any combination of the three, but to every one of the nine realms and one or two beyond even that.

Loki knew none of that, and neither yet did Odin. Or perhaps he did, the Allfather always seemed to carry more knowledge than his mind was comfortable with having, and Loki's fingers itched now more than ever to break him open and see how that brain worked. Probably not for the best. A smashed skull rarely revealed anything of use, and he assumed that would do him no good but to anger Thor into smashing _his_ skull, and Odin would probably just recover anyway. So, he was left to pick apart his adoptive father's mind in the more traditional sense, which was also-unfortunately- not the literal.

The kept his eyes impassive, however, and yet that did not prevent a look of mistrust from Thor, and something more than that in Heimdall's blank eyes. Neither of them seemed willing to follow Odin's order, although Loki was injured and unarmed, and with the three of them blocking the only exit from the bifrost even he didn't have many means to get out of this situation. Not yet, anyway. "Father, now?" Thor wondered, uncertain.

"Now. I wish to speak with Loki before he is led to his trial." Odin replied calmly- not the calm of a leader (arrogant, proud, demanding and oh, was that meant to be _frightening?_) but of a father (disappointed, quiet, a little sad if you wanted to be just a tad too melodramatic). Loki returned his gaze with far more malice, unable to make a real response owing to the metal gag clamped over his lips. "I wish to know what he has to say to me, not to the court."

_You're not my father, you should take pills for narcolepsy, and that eyepatch looks stupid._ Yes, that summed it up nicely, but again Loki couldn't speak a word of it and narrowed his eyebrows sharply to convey his feelings as best as possible.

Whether he succeeded or not, Thor and Odin shared a long glance before the prince nodded, dutiful and wary, and turned back to his not-brother. "Do not waste this chance, brother." He warned gruffly (_not_ brother) before reaching up to unlock the specially-designed muzzle his mortal friend had devised. His hands came next, but Loki had really only been interested in that first part, and his grin showed both his mirth and his less-than-friendly expectations for the upcoming conversation.

"Ah, _Allfather_, how long it's been. I missed your… ah… maybe… hm, I suppose I didn't miss you at all, now that I think about it."

Thor growled, but Odin remained outwardly unmoved. "Heimdall, guard the bridge. I do not want any interference."

As if Heimdall wouldn't be fully aware of any attempts to approach the bifrost, regardless of position or orders given him. Odin was only trying to give them a semblance of solitude, some show no doubt intended to make Loki think he was being treated well. In retrospect he probably was (he hadn't been whipped or anything, was Asgard going _soft?_) considering how high caliber a traitor he had become, but Loki was not placated by the special treatment. He was a prince, the lesser of two or not, and special treatment was exactly what he expected.

So he only raised an eyebrow as Heimdall bowed, said a quick "Yes, my liege", and stepped outside to give them the illusion of… nothing, really, because Thor was there, rendering privacy impossible.

"Well, Allfather? You have me at your mercy. Now what do you want?" Loki wondered with the manner of one so bored he could barely muster the energy, conscious of Thor's presence only inches away. The Thunderer would not allow any sudden movements.

"You have never wanted Midgard, Loki." Odin scolded as he stepped forward, stopping only a foot away from his prisoner. "Are you so distraught by your origins that you would pay the price of a planet merely for revenge against Thor? When he has done you no wrong?"

"You think I attacked Midgard to infuriate _Thor?_ Oh, please. That was a lovely bonus, I must admit, but my dear _brother_-as he still pretends we are- is hardly worth the effort." Loki hoped the full effects of his sneer was visible from the side, it would be such a shame if the blow did not hit Thor with full force. By the slight wince he gave, Loki assumed it had. "I was a King, and he forced me from the throne. I was in search of a new domain, and the humans seemed the easiest pickings. Unfortunately, Thor became involved, and those mortals therefore survived long enough to undo my allies." Who really must be in search of a better system for battle- those warriors, individually, had been nothing short of pathetic, and what sort of species dropped dead when its home base exploded? Simply impractical, evolution had not treated the Chitauri kindly.

"So you killed the mortals in droves and suffered their planet an invasion out of mere jealousy and misguided indignation?" Odin shook his head, eye gloomy as if he had thought better of Loki. The Trickster bristled, more ready than ever to have his blood running over the floor. "You think like a child, Loki, with cruelty unbefitting even a tyrant. You do not deserve the power you wield if you would use it only against others."

"Oh, I apologize, I thought that's what the mortals were for." Loki replied, feigning a startled look. "They are just so useless, you know, I thought- well, if they really do count as people I suppose I could do them a favor. Would you like me to set up a soup kitchen? A garbage dump? I hear _flies_ love those."

Thor growled, and his heavy hand took Loki's shoulder- no doubt he was about to issue a reprimand, but a look from Odin silenced him. There was sharpness to his eye now, the touch of his temper visible behind forced calm intended to keep Loki from "falling" any further, wounded by harsh words. As if he were so fragile. "I would have you see what you have done, and regret it. This is not who you are, Loki."

"Oh, it is. I know now who I am- and I must thank you, Allfather, for that enlightening revelation." Loki's grin grew and turned feral, eager. "I have found a purpose. Haven't you ever killed a human, Odin? It's a wonderful feeling. You see, our blood means so _little._ What good is killing a man who can never die? The mortals however-oh, when _their_ blood drains over your hands you know you have truly beaten time itself. What little they had, whatever minimal purpose in the universe they may have served- it vanishes. _That_ is true victory, not this mockery of warfare against the giants that you Asgardians participate in."

"That is slaughter, not battle." Odin snapped, calm fading away into a barely-concealed display of disgust. This was a warrior race, one that prided itself on organized barbarianism and the glory of death in a fair battle and the pride of too much meat in the arms and none in the head.

Loki grinned and leaned forward, within inches of his feigned father's face. Thor growled and pulled him back, his grip so hard now that it was nearly crushing, but Loki did not care. "Yes. It is slaughter, and madness. Is not madness what _I_ live for, Allfather? What I _thrive_ on?"

"Once I had hoped not." Odin replied, gripping Gungnir tightly enough that the spear trembled. "You do not command madness, Loki, you have been consumed by it."

"I rule it!" Loki shouted in return, stepping forward only to be immediately halted by Thor, who looked as if the effort not to speak his anger was causing him physical pain. "As _you_ rule idiocy and the futility of tradition, and the science of failure in any form that it may be applied. You are a _fool_, Allfather, and Asgard is a wretched loss awaiting destruction for its own good. I will grant it to you, to all of you. Would you like to watch that? Your lives mean less to me than even the humans, Odin, but rest assured I will not waste them."

"Enough." Odin's voice shook, with hatred or fear (unlikely, but it would have been wonderful to see all the same) or something far more weak (sadnesssurprisedistressand_!_).

Loki was not finished, however, and curled his lip back somewhere between a grin and a snarl, words spitting through his teeth. "You seem to care for me even now, do you? Then perhaps I will spare you. You may watch, with Heimdall's ever-seeing eye that I'll have gauged from his self-righteous head, as I destroy all you once held dear. If you love your _children_ so strongly then I hope you will see their deaths- young Balder can be first, I'd hate for Thor to miss that after all. He is the only youth I'll slaughter, Odin, he should feel flattered. So _special_. He is still so small, I doubt if I've missed his first word yet. Maybe you'll hear it- begging for mummy or daddy with whatever breath he has left, choking on his own blood-"

"_Enough!"_ Thor now, truly shaken and a little frightened- either of the possibility, or the fact that Loki was speaking so violently, with such conviction and excitement. Eagerness. Loki ignored him.

"-and then, _then_, I will find Thor. Frigga too may watch, but I won't leave her- I'll wring her neck, with little Balder's innards. Now wouldn't _that_ be ironic, Allfather? I'll kill them all after that, the whole lot of this realm, and you will never follow. I will ensure it- let every moment of your worthless eternity be spent remembering what you brought about by trying to enforce your pathetic morals on one such as I. What _you_ cannot and will not be able to prevent, all the while knowing that not one drop of their blood was worth so much to me as an ounce of fool's gold- _that_ is the summation of your selves, Odin, a pathetic farce of living that I will be so _merciful_ to end!" Loki was breathing hard, shouting not with anger but anticipation- he wanted it, not to kill the Asgardians (they truly meant so little dead, after all, but this realm was beautiful alive and it was such a shame, really, that he didn't know how badly he might actually want what he spoke of, or might not) but to see that pain in Odin's face. He wore it now, yes, but with not nearly enough strength.

"You do not know what you are saying." Odin said after a long moment, emotions slowly subsiding but still there, waiting to be called forward. "Have you lost your mind as well as your purpose, my son?"

No, of course not. Well, perhaps, it really depended on your definition of the word. He still physically had a brain, and he was every bit as intelligent as ever he had been. Loki grinned, all playful now, and actually deigned to wink. "Oh, now, don't be calling me that. You know what I tend to do to my fathers, it's a bit messy."

"I do not know what has incited you to speak this way, but stop now." Thor snapped, and Loki turned to him at last with an expression that practically defined disinterest. "Your mind is ill. Say no more that you cannot take back, Loki."

"Oh? Are you mad that I threatened your dear little brother?" Loki wondered, laughing at the irrationality of it. There was little chance he would kill Balder-at his current age, anyway- and even littler that he would ever succeed in single-handedly outfighting all of Asgard. Did he want it? Perhaps (he hadn't decided yet, it was a bit hard to when just the concept made them so wonderfully angry with him) or perhaps not. He'd have to try it to find out. And what if he did, really? The world hardly needed a god of light, it was far too bright already. "I think I'd be doing Frigga a favor, really. It's not as if that harlot needs any more children sucking at her breast. One has to wonder who their fathers _really_ must be at the rate she's popping them out-"

The moment was blinding, really, to say the least. Loki's mind had been seeing everything far too quickly lately (more quickly than it actually could have possibly, actually, been happening, but he liked life better that way even if it made decision a bit fuzzy) but even he could not keep up with Thor's placating shout, the sudden lack of pressure on his shoulder as the thunderer stepped forward, not to mention the lightning-fast swing of Odin's spear, the blade of it toned to his control by thousands of years of warfare. And he definitely couldn't comprehend the force it held or the crack that echoed from his mind outward and brought Heimdall's attention their way (_oh, perhaps he _had_ blocked them out, out of a courtesy, now why would he do a thing like-) _

At least the darkness was something he could understand, and Loki fell back into it with gratitude- or, well, something like it anyway.


	2. The World's Not Ready to Welcome You

**A/N: Whooo chapter two~ Hope you guys are liking it so far. Loki's name is going to be funky for just a little while guys, and same goes for his behavior- concussions don't leave you feeling your best you know. I spent a few hours on the phone with hospitals discussing hospital protocol for amnesia patients, but things were simplified a bit for the sake of getting on with the fic. Hopefully nobody minds.**

**Also, there will be Amazing Spiderman spoilers now. You have been warned- also, this takes place awhile after that movie, I'd say half a year or more? (Also yes, this will be the ordinary chapter length. The delay however, hopefully not regular. I'm going to be busy for awhile though- on top of camp we now have rehearsal, which is awesome but might slow down updates for various stories.)  
**

"Peter, I'm pretty sure this is illegal."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Probably the twelve signs we've already passed that say "No entrance permitted past one AM, violators will be prosecuted". Or women's intuition, it's never failed me yet."

No kidding. If it came down to it, Peter would probably put Gwen's "intuition" above even his spider-senses in any situation where he felt caution was actually a necessity. In Central Park, however, he felt he was more than adequate protection for the both of them (the supervillains had avoided this place so far, it seemed like they all had a proper respect for tourism and tacky statues). "I think I've done the law's job enough times to merit harmlessly breaking it every now and again. Hey, Balto."

The dog statue had always been one of his favorites, just because it was so wonderfully out of place beside all the imposing war heroes and political leaders. Good for Balto. "You know, I'm ninety percent sure it doesn't work that way." Gwen replied, in that pretending-not-to-be sarcastic way of hers that was somehow ten times more sarcastic than he could ever manage.

Peter grinned at her, knowing she wouldn't protest now that they were looking at the interesting stuff. She had a soft spot for the park- _everyone_ did- and had always despised the crowds, mostly because the sheer amount of untrustworthy activity made Peter's senses go haywire and she hated the way he kept jerking his head every which-way in search of murderous intent. So a nighttime stroll had to be the best decision, and really after all the times he had saved this city Peter thought he was more than entitled to an undisturbed date with his girlfriend, somewhere almost normal. It wasn't like they were alone, either- people "broke in" to the park at night all the time. New York really didn't sleep, thankfully, so the city lights were enough to keep the flowers and statues and what-have-you all lit up (also, unfortunately, enough to light _them_ up, but Peter was really counting on nobody looking) enough that they could get a good look at things.

And Gwen wanted to do just that. _Actually_ get a good look at things- a good, long look, that Peter figured would have gotten really, really boring after about forty minutes if every nerve in his body hadn't gone haywire after exactly twenty-two and a half.

He'd had trouble with the Sense before, but it had never actually made his head _ache_, not even when a bullet was headed for his chest. The pain lasted only about two seconds, but subsided into something more familiar and probably only minimally less dangerous. "Something's here."

"Anyone we know?" Gwen asked quickly, not at all stunned by the idea of a horrible threat stalking them through Central Park.

"It's not an attack or anything, it's just… something, here." No threat to him, directly anyway, but something all the same. He looked around, eyebrows drawn together and web canisters ready if anything got to close to either of them.

"Something." Gwen's voice had dropped, become not-quite-hushed in that way it always did when they were watching a movie either particularly horrific, or unbearably sad. (Not the Titanic though, she was always too focused on trying to figure out whether that thing Rose was floating on could have held them both or not to care much about the whole freezing-boyfriend thing.)

Peter groaned inwardly and followed her gaze, not all that startled to spot three specks of blood polka-dotting the floor about eight feet away. "Wait here." She nodded (he knew, even with his back turned), and he kept half his awareness on her and half on the blood as he walked forward.

Really, blood in New York wasn't as uncommon as he'd have liked. In Central Park, however, that sort of thing was almost unheard of, and the stuff on the floor was both fresh, and _way_ dark. From down deep, then, as was the small smear of it (like a hand coated in the stuff had scraped over the ground, darker where the palm had pushed _someone_ upright) just a few feet away. More dots, a few lines, one almost-puddle. It was like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs, and Peter beckoned for Gwen to keep within his sight but well back as he followed it, becoming slowly aware of the smell of burning flesh and hair. God, how he _hated_ knowing what that smelled like.

The tingling stopped around the same time that the sounds of city traffic and distant drunkenness broke by a ragged sort of breathing, audible only because Peter was listening for it (and because he was, well, _Peter _and his ears could work like that). He rounded a statue of Alice in Wonderland (another misfit statue, but not one that really seemed to stand for much other than acid-trip literature), semi-crouched and web canisters ready, eyes trained on the ground so that he caught sight of the "something" as soon as he was within sight. Peter's first instincts (and yes, plural, the crime-fighter and the superhero, then the teenage boy and the photographer) were conflicting, telling him first to check for concussion, but also to take a picture before anything changed.

The scene was highly photogenic, in a really horrific sort of way. The stranger had landed not far from the edge of the first step (at the back of the semi-large circle of stone on which the statue rested) and his injury had left a waterfall of sorts down the stairs that gathered into a dark red pool around the bench leg. There was even kind of a ripple directly around the stranger's body where his shallow breathing must have disrupted the "puddle" of sorts nearest him and splayed it out by his head. It could have been cool aside from the fact that it was a _lot_ of blood, most of which seems to be pouring from his left temple, which was gushing the stuff even then at a rate which was actually visible. Not good. The stranger's expensive, simplistic black clothes were ruined now with blood staining the entire left side and bits of the front, but at least he was breathing. That might make up for the loss of fancy clothing.

"Right. Safe to come over, Gwen, but it's um- it's not exactly pretty," Peter called. She peeked her head around the statue and gagged at the sight, ducking away for a few moments before returning, pale and a little nervous but purposefully stalwart.

She'd seen Peter looking bad enough, though, that she joined him crouched on the ground and only winced sympathetically when she reached out to feel the stranger's gaunt cheek. "He's freezing. Do you think he was mugged? I didn't see anybody else around here."

Peter checked the man's pockets (_"Honestly, Peter?"_) and found them empty- no wallet, no phone, no cash. "Looks like it. Here, hold this to his head, see if you can slow that down." He pulled off his jacket and offered it over, waiting until his hands were free before bending forward carefully to slide open the man's eyelid. Pupils huge but uneven, and completely unresponsive to the light from his phone, the waving of his fingers, even being blown on quickly. "He's either dead, or he has a concussion."

"He's breathing."

"Concussion then."

Gwen rolled her eyes, in a way he liked to assume was fond, and lessened the pressure she was applying to the man's head wound. He hadn't even twitched in response to the contact, so Peter assumed the injury had gone numb, meaning it was more likely to be fatal. Great. "Think he'd stick to it if I made a stretcher out of the webs?"

"Yes. We should probably check the back of his head too, in case he cracked it when he fell- I'll call an ambulance."

"Ambulance? 911 will _not_ be happy that we were in here." At closer inspection the wound looked like it was from a blade, not a fall, and Peter wouldn't have trusted them to move him anyway. "Do you know any shady doctors who could do this for us?"

The obvious aside, there was more to worry about than the slash to the temple (which was too wide to be from any knife Peter knew of). There were cuts and scrapes all over his face, most of which looked older but had been torn open by… something. A victim of repeat abuse, maybe? And his hair was smoking, _literally_ smoking, long and black and curling at the edges where three or four inches of it had already been burnt beyond repair. His neck had caught some of the effects, but none of the damage was too bad. Peter hoped the guy wasn't vain- his clothes were gone, his face battered and hair out for the count. That cut was probably going to leave one nasty scar, too.

Gwen had ignored his "protests", and her phone was out before Peter could make any pretend attempts to stop her. "Hello? My boyfriend and I found somebody, and he's badly injured. We think he has a concussion, could I get an ambulance out here, please? Central Park, by the Alice statue."

"We're going to get arrested." Peter whined, failing to ignore the pitiful little shudder of pain their mystery man gave as his breath began to lose whatever rhythm it had had. Yeah, he definitely needed to get to the hospital, quickly. "Or are we protected under the good Samaritan law? Doesn't matter, Aunt May's going to kill me whether I land in jail or not."

"No, we've never met before, Gwen and I just found him today. The park was deserted, but we saw him hobbling toward it and decided to follow."

Telling the story for a fourth time was making it a lot easier for Peter not to screw up the imagined details, and he didn't even need to glance at Gwen anymore to confirm that they were spinning the same yarn. The cops, the emergency response, the receptionist, and now the doctor- the dark haired stranger was going to be a celebrity by the time he woke up. Hopefully not, actually; if this ended up on the news Aunt May would probably kill her reckless nephew, or whoever had beaten this guy up would stroll on back to finish the job. "We wanted to make sure he wasn't covered in someone _else's_ blood before we called an ambulance, you know? And her dad was with the police, we were _pretty_ sure we could handle one mugger. I've taken Tae Kwon Do."

It was worth the whole story just to see the Doctor's astonishment- she must have been ready to cry when she imagined Peter's upbringing. Of course, he _could_ have handled any trouble, but this woman had no idea that she was talking with her friendly neighborhood Spiderman. He just sounded like some moron kid who was wholly convinced he was immortal, and relied on the television to teach him how people took on the bad guys. "Right. Well, that's actually a horrible idea, but I'm glad you found him. We should be grateful your girlfriend knew what to do, at least."

Leg's up, body warm, lots of shaking and forced alertness (or a semblance of it, anyway). It had all helped, but Peter resented that the doctor just assumed all the protocol had been Gwen's idea. "_We_ took a few first aid classes." More like they had common sense, but doctors never seemed to trust in that. "So, how is he?"

"Well, you were right about the concussion. He's also got a few cracked ribs, some internal bleeding scattered over his body, and a bit of a fever. But nothing fatal, he should be out of here in about two days." The doctor explained, checking her clipboard to confirm these bare-bone details. Peter was convinced they just did that to look more important.

Whatever, the guy was alive- he felt a surge of relief and smiled to show it, which had the doctor mimicking his mirth. Hospitals were way too sullen, a little smiling could do them good. "So do rescuers get special privileges, or do I have to wait for visiting hours?"

Peter wanted to get the whole story before he went home- Gwen was falling half asleep in one of those awful plastic chairs, but he was too wired for it. If somebody _was_ following him, they weren't some simple thugs- the spider sense had made that clear enough. "Normally you wouldn't have been allowed past the reception area. But we need to observe his speech to see how badly addled he really is, and we think that if he's a victim he'll be more calm if his "rescuer" is there when his head clears up. You said he was conscious at points?"

"More like he couldn't decide whether his eyes were supposed to be open or not while he was asleep but yeah, he woke up for a bit." Even talked, though he'd been so badly slurred that it was almost an insult to coherent speech. The whole deal with concussion patients was keeping them awake for at least twelve hours, but it had been a lost cause from the get-go. Peter had his fingers crossed that there wouldn't be too many ill effects to thank for this.

"Well, if we're lucky he'll remember that. A familiar face should do some good," The doctor tucked her clipboard under her arm, and Peter felt strangely inadequate without one, like his thoughts couldn't be recorded and therefore were less important. No doubt that was the clipboard's true purpose, why else wouldn't doctors just get an iPhone like everyone else in New York? "If you want, you can go in there now- he's awake, but alone for the time being."

"He's up?" Peter glanced at the room, but it didn't do him any good. The windows were curtained and the door windowless- the doctors probably had a way of watching him, but they'd given their patient plenty of privacy. "Can Gwen come with me? She's a lot better with people than I am, and she's a pretty girl. That usually helps."

Gwen blinked open one eye, smiling slightly at the compliment but rolling her eyes at him for giving it. "Don't let him fool you, Peter's actually a bit of a genius. If you don't mind, ma'am? I wanted to ask him a few questions."

"It's a meeting, not an interrogation. Just get a basic story, nothing too stressful, and find out his name. Hopefully he has family nearby," the Doctor (Miss Kirby, according to her badge) lowered her clipboard at last, tapping it against the outside of her thigh. "Be prepared for him to have some trouble speaking- he's lucky he didn't go blind from a blow like that. If he seems too dazed or agitated give an excuse to leave, then send one of us inside. I'll be watching, but some people tend to find the sight of the coat unnerving when they first wake up."

The both of them took that as permission, so it surprised nobody when Gwen turned immediately toward the door barring her from the injured man. She had a bit of a protective streak that Peter found both adorable, and a little unfortunate- it drove her crazy how often he got himself hurt. A quick farewell "thanks" and he was following after her, making sure not to open the door far enough for the man to notice any doctors in the hall.

Then again, the man seemed to barely notice even them (again, to no surprise), nor did he seem to be all that disturbed by his surroundings. At first Peter smiled, relieved, but that morphed into a frown he shared with Gwen, because there was nothing normal about that reaction at all. Waking up with a killer headache, burns and cuts all over your body and bandages stuck to the side of your head in an unfamiliar white-washed room with an IV in your arm should have been terrifying for anybody. Their stranger, however, seemed mostly curious, and a little bit drowsy in that blinking-really-slow sort of way.

"Hello." He turned, eyes furrowed slightly toward Gwen as she spoke, slowly approaching the bed with her winning smile placating any nerves he may have had. "I'm Gwen Stacy- me and Peter here found you in the park. Your head doing okay?"

For a long moment it looked as if he didn't understand her, but then the stranger nodded. "I… it hurts but I think I am all right. I was in a park? Um, Gwen?"

Nice accent- Peter marked down _British_ in his mental description of the man, along with _rich_ because that voice was too cultured not to be. So at least he'd be able to afford a better haircut than the job the hospital had done- it was a little uneven in the back, badly disproportionate on the left and right, and as curly as sheep's wool. He had the strange urge to ruffle it, but thankfully didn't act on it. Becoming a superhero hadn't done anything to ease the awkwardness of introductory conversation."The park, yeah. Central Park. You remember going there?" He wondered, and only then did the man seem to realize he was there as well despite the introduction Gwen had made for him.

"No, what's Central Park?" Stranger-danger wondered, and then Peter knew they were _really_ in trouble. Who came to New York City and didn't know about Central park?

"It's just a big park, lots of statues and trees," Gwen explained levelly, waving it off as if his lack of knowledge was perfectly common, and Peter mimicked her rather than give any potentially stressful clues about the stranger's so-far abnormality. "So you don't know why you were there, mister…? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. If you had a wallet or ID, it's gone now."

"Wallet?" The man blinked a few times, processing the rest of her question. "Ah, my name… no, I can't recall. A name- that's like 'Gwen', yes?"

"Yours would be closet to Peter, I think," Gwen offered, now looking at Peter with obvious concern. "Okay, so you don't know your name, that's fine. Do you know where you live?"

"I… No, I don't."

"Let's simplify things, what _do_ you remember?" Peter cut in, moving over to get a better look at no-name's eyes. They were still a little cloudy with pupils that were dilated and slow to respond, but what worried him the most was how passively the man reacted to being inspected. He was completely nonchalant, maybe curious in a very vague sort of way but entirely unconcerned about having a stranger come up and prod at his head.

"Remember?" He took a few seconds to decipher what this meant, then shook his head once more. "Nothing, I'm afraid. English. Once you say it I remember it, anyway. Or once I speak it…"

There was definitely a slur still coloring his voice, and the stranger seemed to recognize it. He frowned slightly, and looked at Peter for the first time with real emotion- he looked scared, and young, but he must have been at least twenty-five if not thirty. "Don't worry, the doctors said there's no permanent damage. Though it looks like your memory's a lost cause. Um, pardon the accidental tasteless pun, I swear that wasn't on purpose."

"Nothing permanent. Do you know what happened, then?"

"We think somebody robbed you- your head was bleeding pretty bad, and it looked like somebody had tried to burn your hair," Gwen supplied helpfully.

"What- do you mean my hair burnt?" Nameless wondered, reaching up to paw at the ends as if expecting to find them on fire.

"Uh, yeah, but don't worry, burnt is past tense, that's hopefully all the fire you'll ever get on your head." Peter glanced helplessly toward the door, but no doctors came to their rescue just yet. Poor guy looked like he needed a lot more answers than either Peter or Gwen were going to be able to give him. "We need something to call you- what name do you want?"

"Do people usually pick their names?"

"Nope. Hey, you're special, how 'bout that?"

"I... don't know any names," he admitted, frowning wearily. He probably wanted to get back to sleep, but it wouldn't be safe and having something to call himself might make the waking world a little easier to handle.

"Well we both know plenty. Let's see… what about the hospital?" Gwen suggested, eyes turning away from a plastic cup with the name printed on it to smile encouragingly at Peter.

Not bad, actually- it would definitely stick until he remembered his actual name, but he couldn't resist some feigned misinterpretation at its expense all the same. "I don't know, "Permanente" seems a little mean, all things considered."

"Before he confuses you, let me explain that Peter is an illogical human being and nothing that comes out of his mouth should be trusted without extreme screening for the possibility of an attempted joke," She elaborated helpfully, and the stranger nodded without even a hint of a smile. "I meant Kaiser. It's not exactly conventional, but I think it suits him. What do you think?"

"It doesn't sound familiar. But very well, Kaiser is fine." The newly dubbed "Kaiser" nodded slowly, lazily, and his head stayed down a moment longer than was reassuring. "I don't mean to be rude- but can I go back to sleep, now?"

"Not yet, let the doctors get a quick look at you and they'll tell you when you can. They have to do some… annoying doctor stuff, but I don't think it'll take long. There questions will probably make more sense than ours did, anyway," Peter assured, though he had a feeling nothing would make much sense to Kaiser right now, and took a step toward the door.

Gwen took the same cue to exit, with a few warm smiles and a goodbye to serve for both her and Peter, then followed him out of the room just as the doctors crossed into it. She folded her arms, raised an eyebrow, and shook her head- all pre-emptive severity and Peter wasn't sure whether it would be safer to talk or let her get the first word. Damned woman's intuition. "Okay, you don't even know what I'm going to _do_ yet."

"Yes, I do. You're going to go home, spin that same story for Aunt May, then adopt an amnesiac who's probably twice your age."

"No way, Aunt May gets the truth," Peter defended because honestly, he probably wouldn't be able to fool her anyway. "Look, whatever attacked that guy wasn't some normal mugger. There's something after him, I can tell, and whatever it is isn't human. If he goes off into some recovery program he'll be dead on the streets in two weeks, tops."

"Let me take him, then. Trouble loves you, you hardly need to invite any more of it. We have room since-" Gwen looked for a second like she might say more, but instead closed her eyes for a moment then raised them to look at Peter, pleading and worried. "For all you know, _he_ could be the danger. He might just be playing you, waiting for a chance."

"No, no way. I'm not putting you at risk, Gwen- I shouldn't even be _around_ you." Not to mention how awful he felt that he was, but Gwen wouldn't and couldn't be ignored, and it was better to be with her and have her in danger than to avoid her and have her in danger anyway. At least he could keep an eye on her this way. "Look, if he's at our house I can keep an eye on him and be ready if something comes after him. I don't want to put Aunt May in danger, but if she found out about Kaiser and heard that I _didn't_ offer him a place to stay, she'd probably flay me alive."

"And what happens if they don't let him leave with you?"

"It's that, or they keep him here. Protocol says they have to circulate a description of him, but they only have to keep him in the hospital if he's got nowhere else to go. I asked the receptionist, they have a social services program here. So long as Aunt May and I can prove that we're able to provide any medical care he needs, it's legal. I'm not asking for you to do anything, Gwen. I don't want you to get involved in this."

They held gazes for a moment, neither of them challenging the other but each trying their hardest to work out what exactly was going on, what they should do next. At last she nodded firmly, folded her arms, and shook her head. "Nope, you're not getting all the fun out of this. Besides, _I_ named him. I know plenty of people in the NYPD, let's go look up how to keep this legal."

* * *

Kaiser didn't like hospitals- though that felt less like a memory, and more like a discovery. Perhaps that was what he'd feel like whenever he remembered something, but he was distinctly certain that his dislike was a new development. Everything felt so detached, like everybody there was doing their best to assure everybody else that they _weren't_ there even though they were, and he didn't need that at all. He wanted _normalcy_, he wanted somebody to turn to him and say, "You are here, in the hospital we named you after, and you don't know anything." It would be better than the fragile treatment he was getting now, like actually grounding him would make him break.

The doctors came to talk to him all the time, but they weren't telling him much. One asked if he had a family, and he'd hoped with each second that he would remember a father, a mother, an uncle or a sibling of some sort. But it wasn't until they asked if he was married that he even felt…. anything. He'd been left there, staring at his hand for twenty minutes until they had left uncertainly, letting him search for some discoloration in the skin, something to indicate he'd had a ring and lost it. He had no money, no ID, it was possible that he'd had an engagement or wedding ring stolen, right? But Kaiser took even that in stride and only shrugged, figuring that if he'd ever married somebody then they would be the first thing he remembered.

What first made him fearful, or nervous, however, was being told that if his memory didn't return or he had nowhere else to go the hospital may very well keep him there for months.

He found out, then, that he was very good with his words. His personal doctor- he didn't try to learn her name, he was far too scared of forgetting it- saw his distress and mentioned something, absently, of a family under screening that, with any luck, _would_ be allowed to keep him under their wing. If he wanted, of course. Kaiser had spoken without thinking, smiled and half-veiled his eyes where he thought might be appropriate, furrowed his brow in pitiful confusion at other points, and widened his eyes with what felt like hope when the doctor seemed to be considering anything. He was rewarded just two days later (seven days, six hours, twenty nine minutes since he'd woken up in the hospital- time wouldn't leave him alone, he was far too aware of the rest of the world around him while oblivious to the one inside him) with one of the only two faces he could have known, and one he recognized only through similarity.

Peter was bearing bruises he hadn't had during any of the other times he'd stopped by to visit Kaiser, but he was smiling much more brightly. The woman beside him, whose features were gratefully similar to Peter's and therefore not unnerving to be introduced to, was smiling as well, softer than the boy. Kaiser's head was a constant bother to him, and it had been revealed that he was sporting a cracked rip- but he was no longer confined to bed, and the two of them found him engrossed in a book, thick-backed and only one of many he had torn through in his time there.

"I told you about my Aunt May, right?" Peter wondered in way of greeting, stepping aside to wave both arms toward the woman as though he were making a presentation. "Well, ta-da! Here she is, the prime candidate for "world's most amazing older woman"."

"If you just called me old, Peter Parker, you can spend the next week scrubbing every floor in my house," May warned, turning a scolding gaze on him that didn't look harsh, no, but… stern, almost protective? Kaiser wondered if he had ever seen it before.

"Um, right. World's most awesome woman… period?"

"That's much better," She patted him affectionately on the arm, which had him grinning once again, and turned toward Kaiser. She looked a little startled by the bandages all along his face, or the splint on his wounded wrist, but she only frowned sympathetically and offered a hand to him. "Hello, there. I'm sorry it's been so long- I had quite the fight before the hospital would let us keep you."

Kaiser's hand hesitated in hers, and all thoughts for _A Tale of Two Cities_ lay forgotten beside the book, splayed sadly out on the desk he'd been left. "Pleasure to meet you, but… I am afraid that I don't understand. 'Keep me'?"

"Not in a literal sense. You're coming back to our place- you know, until you remember where you actually live," Peter beamed, holding out a wrinkled plastic bag with the name of what was probably a store plastered on the front and waved it when Kaiser only stared. He realized that he was meant to take it and did so with what he'd learned was a winning smile, nudging the bag open curiously. "They're mine. They run a little big, and you're a bit taller than me, so we figured they might fit."

"But- why?" Two people he didn't know, giving him clothes and letting him into their home- Kaiser looked them up and down, and registered that they were dressed no better than any other he had seen passing through the halls. Worse than many. Could they afford a guest, let alone a fully grown man with no legal papers or any sort? He'd been told that may be a problem. "I- the offer is greatly appreciated, but I would not wish to be a burden."

"Now, I won't hear any of _that_," May scolded, and Kaiser moved back an inch or so on instinctual surprise at her tone. "My husband told us once that if you could do a good thing for another person than you were morally bound to do it. As far as I can see it, he wouldn't be too happy with us if we left you here. Peter saw a man in need of help, and he wants to help him."

That didn't seem rational. Kaiser frowned, trying to puzzle out the logic in it, but supposed that was just another social tendency he'd forgotten- he'd already noticed people doing plenty of things that made no sense. "Then I thank you for your hospitality, but I am not sure I can accept it." A place to live was a much better thing to have than a room in a wretched white-walled building full of the ill and angry, but Kaiser knew better already than to accept the first, even second offer. If he wished to be living with these people, accepting their help, he wanted to make a good impression on the owner of the home. "Peter has already saved my life."

"Or maybe I mugged you, and this is all an elaborate cover-up," Peter suggested, which May didn't seem too happy about.

"Well if that's the case I'd like my wallet back."

"But the leather was embroidered and everything!"

"Peter," May scolded with something of a sigh. "We're helping you because Peter saved your life. Poor boy's been worried about you."

Whether her tone was joking or not, Kaiser couldn't help a bit of a laugh. Real hospitality… he would be a fool to turn them down. "Well, can't have Peter worrying. I don't know if he could take the stress."

"My poor heart would never survive the strain," Peter agreed, swooning dramatically and falling back onto the currently unoccupied hospital bed. "But really, we've got it all checked out. We have three or four bags stuffed with medicine and stuff that the hospital gave us for you, and we kind of converted the room next to me into something livable, instead of a horrible storage full of moldy books from our formerly flooded basement."

A room? They'd already made him out a room for him? They must have been so confident that he would come- but really, Kaiser had no choice but to accept. Not that he _wished_ for a different choice. Peter was one of few people he was willing to even look at since waking up. "I- thank you. Very much, I don't know how I can repay you." The books the hospital had lent him often mentioned repayment, closing up debts. He'd have to do something like that, wouldn't he?

He wouldn't know how to do that, and there would be quite a bit to repay. Perhaps he shouldn't go- his head was aching with pain, so he wouldn't be able to give any aid that involved thought. He couldn't even help with the room they'd made, with his ribs and wrist like they were. Likely he wouldn't be able to do more than he was doing now at the hospital- read for those six or seven hours during the day that he was actually able to rouse himself from sleep. He'd asked the doctors why he slept so much after realizing through his novels that most people spent their days awake for as long as possible. Apparently his body was using that to recover, but they looked nervous when they said it- even now he was drowsy. Clouded.

"Don't be ridiculous," May scolded, smiling down at him in a very… calming sort of way. He smiled back, still feeling just as tired but much more like he was allowed to be feeling so. "We don't want anything from you. Now go on, change into those. Peter and I will be waiting outside."

She smiled at him again and turned from the room, seeming to understand that Peter would want to hesitate for a moment. "Look, Aunt May is going to be terrified if you don't come with us. I told her about you being attacked, she agrees with me that whoever went after you might try to come back- just, strength in numbers, yeah?" Peter gave him a rough thump on his back and grinned, waiting for Kaiser to do the same (sans thumping), before hurrying after his Aunt. He stopped in the doorway- or, rather, turned around so that he exited it while walking backwards- for one last comment. "It's freezing outside, so I'd put on the coat if I were you. And uh, yeah, that's it. So see you in a minute, well just be here."

He closed the door with a bit of a crash, and Kaiser grimaced slightly but couldn't help laughing at the muffled "Sorry!" that came from behind the door. The hospital was very strict about silence- he'd been moved to a room that was mostly secluded because of that, though he still didn't know what that meant. He never made much noise.

For a long moment Kaiser didn't move, but eventually he stood and changed out of the ill-fitting clothes he had been given by the hospital once it was clear he would be a long-term visitor. Peter's old clothing was too small, but it was much more comfortable, and the leather coat fit nicely around his body. He must have been cold without realizing it, because the weight was almost relaxing. He started toward the door with his hand extended nervously (he hadn't left the room except while half conscious when he changed his living space, what was he supposed to do once he had?) but stopped before he even touched it. His books- well, they weren't really his, but he had read them and didn't want to leave without them. He knew those stories better than his own.

But there would be more at Peter's house- the boy was smart, certainly the reading type. His backpack when he dropped by after school, which was apparently almost off on winter break, was always stuffed full of reading material. So Kaiser shucked off his longing and walked nervously through the door, clutching the bag of borrowed clothing in one hand.

May was speaking with a nurse, and Peter was playing with some small device in his hand- a phone, most likely, though Kaiser had yet to read a book that offered a physical description of the little machines. He shuffled his feet apprehensively, wondering what he was meant to do, but within moments everybody had turned to him anyway, and he could do nothing but freeze. He hated the nurses, the way they looked at him. It was more that he wasn't used to it yet, really, but he still didn't like it. They studied him, and he didn't feel like it was fair that they should try to learn things about him that he was still unaware of.

"Ah, so you're ready to go?" The nurse beamed at him and stepped forward with her hand extended. Kaiser took it with a bright smile, ignoring his unease. "If you ever feel unusually light-headed or ill come right back here. And never feel afraid to just drop by- we'll all be sorry to see you go."

Kaiser nodded, trying to meet her gaze steadily. He was fully aware that he'd become a sort of pet for the people who worked here, but seven days was not enough for him to consider them friends- not like he did Peter, who he liked not because he had helped him but because he was good company. Better than them by far. "I will. I- am I really going, just like that?"

"Just like that. Hospitals don't keep people longer than they need to be there," The nurse acted as if this were a bad thing, somehow, but Kaiser felt tension bleeding from his shoulders. He was leaving. "Remember, no exercise or lifting until we approve you, and avoid loud noises or bright lights when you can. And Kaiser; if you remember anything at all please come back here immediately."

Kaiser nodded, intending never to do anything of the sort, and waited patiently while May finished a few hushed conversations with the nurse, and a bit of tedious-looking paperwork. Peter finished whatever he was doing on his phone after a few minutes and came to stand beside him, but neither of them spoke. The younger boy hummed and tapped his foot in time with music that didn't exist, and Kaiser's lip twitched up in silent laughter. Peter certainly was a strange kid, wasn't he? Gwen was as well, in a far subtler way, but she hadn't been around more than once since that first night. Kaiser didn't mind, he'd been surprised to see her again at all.

"Kaiser?" He flinched, turning nervously toward the voice, and found Peter watching him with an odd expression. "When you space out you uh… you really space out, don't you? Okay there?"

"Of course, I am well," Kaiser replied slowly, smiling once more. He could hardly keep on his feet, but there was nowhere to sleep here and no sense in doing it. "Tired."

"Once we're home you can sleep the night away. I say night, but it's like, four o' clock. Head wounds take that much out of you?" Peter reached up to rub a bit of bruising on his cheek, as if he thought he too would find himself exhausted constantly as a result. The boy no doubt knew more about injury and healing than did most of the staff in the hospital, so Kaiser only humored his teasing with a brightened smile.

May must have heard them, or perhaps her glance toward them let her see too much of Kaiser's weariness, for concern flashed over her eyes and she was done with the nurse two minutes later. She put her hand on his arm, and there was definitely something familiar about the touch- which was unusual. He did not think he had any aunts. "I should call a cab, I don't think you're fit for the subway just yet."

The subway. Kaiser had read about it, and New York's was the site for many favorite scenes in the best of his books. He wanted to see it, but he knew it would be exhausting. "I can manage it. It is quicker, no? With uh… traffic?"

"Oh, do you remember driving?" The nurse looked hopeful, but Kaiser was not sorry to clarify.

"No, I read about it. And have heard the staff complaining of it."

All his knowledge came from books, but what did they expect? He could learn from conversations, but he had had very few of those yet. May seemed unsurprised however, and only nodded understandingly, but her hand never dropped from his arm, and soon Peter's had clamped over his shoulder. He realized he was swaying on his feet and quickly steadied himself before the nurse could notice. Both hands were removed at their own pace, for which Kaiser was more than grateful, and after a long stretch of silence he bowed his head in a farewell to the employee. Time to leave.

They made it through the building just fine (though there was more paperwork at the desk, and a few questions Kaiser had to suffer through answering), but exiting was not an easy affair. It was a simple problem with a not so simple solution-Peter could not, for all his and Aunt May's efforts, get Kaiser to actually step onto the pavement.

He'd already noticed that the guy was… well… unusual, but he figured amnesia could do that to a person and let it be. But now he was growing kind of worried, and he could see that Aunt May was too, hear it in her voice as she tried to draw Kaiser's attention. He didn't seem to notice. His eyes were darting everywhere, much too quickly, like the whole thing was an overload of the senses and his mind was just going to pop from all of it- Peter knew that feeling all too well, but Kaiser didn't _have_ a super-powered spider bite to be moving his eyes so quickly, flickering over each individual face in the crowd as if he had time to memorize them before moving on. The streets weren't even that busy, not for New York. Peter vowed that it would be a long, long time before they brought Kaiser anywhere near Time Square.

It was probably to be expected that he would be a little overwhelmed, so Peter glanced at his Aunt and shook his head just slightly, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop her from worrying all the same. It was a few very boring and yet very worrisome minutes before Kaiser jerked back to reality as if he had merely been startled, and turned, blinking, toward Peter. He must have recognized his concern and deduced the reason for it, because a sort of frustrated embarrassment flashed through his eyes before he nodded apologetically and stepped forward at long last. He wasn't the steadiest on his feet and yet Peter was sure his help would do no real good, so he only stuck to Kaiser's side. Aunt May, however, had no such inhibitions.

She looped her arm in his, like she sometimes did when Peter was walking her home much too late at night, and steered him to the right when he turned in the wrong direction, allowing herself to appear the tag-along and not the leader. If Kaiser had perceived this the illusion would have been complete, but the man looked baffled by his sudden "captivity" and only consented to be pulled along without even a hint of his usual below-the-surface air of authority. So rather than helpful, he just looked kind of goofy."Prick your finger on the spinning wheel, Kai?"

Sleeping beauty grinned drowsily at the reference, and Peter wondered if he must have read it or if the classics had just survived his memory loss. Probably not, it didn't look like much had. "I've remembered something: concussions are exhausting."

"That doesn't count- discovery, not memory."

"Are we keeping score then?"

"Remembering your real name earns you a free experience boost."

Even without video gaming experience Kaiser chuckled at the concept of the joke and some of that twitchiness seemed to wash away, though he still looked dead on his feet. They'd expected that though, at least a few days of exhaustion before their new long-term guest would be up to something resembling ordinary life. Being hurt sucked, and even with superpowers Peter found himself wanting to just lie down and forget the world when some bad guy got a luck shot. Kaiser could sleep though, without any world-saving responsibilities to shirk. Sometimes Peter thought that must be nice, not having thousands or millions or more lives resting on your shoulders, but he always got over it pretty quickly. Nobody had forced him to take up the job (though the pay was nonexistent and let's face it, the health care plan was _awful_).

Kaiser didn't really enjoy the trip. The crowds were unnerving but not problematic, but people looked at him and depending on whether they saw Aunt May helping him or the bandages first either laughed or shied away from him. It wasn't as if injury could be contagious, and yet mothers seemed nervous about letting their children anywhere near him. Maybe they thought he was involved with somebody dangerous. That could have been interesting- had he been in a gang? It would explain a lot, and for a moment Kaiser spun himself a fake and somewhat violent history, but then realized that if he _had_ angered any gangs then somebody would likely arrive at May's door with a gun, so he wiped that idea away as they descended through a hole in the street, which was apparently nothing to be worried about.

The hole led to an even more condensed crowd, and an absolutely awful smell of sweat, trash, and a few other things he didn't want to think about. The place was an absolute mess, in need of cleaning and some proper ventilation, but he suppressed his disgust well enough. Peter and May seemed unbothered- were they used to it, or was this a common state of things? The hospital, he knew, was cleaner than most things he would see, but this was a bit of an… extreme difference. All the same he followed the two, listening to Peter's instructions and explanations, through crowds, stairs, spinning metal bars, and muggy tunnels with gum-lathered benches until their transportation arrived.

Which appeared to be nothing more than a giant metal tube. No, it was fine, he'd read about subways- but he didn't want to get on the thing, even when the doors slid open in invitation. The amount of people inside that wretched machine… "How- how long are we in there?"

"Not long. Don't worry, next station's huge, most of these people will clear on out," Peter assured, thankfully making no physical attempt to encourage him forward. "Should we wait for the next one?"

No, Kaiser would _not_ be treated like a fragile thing, some invalid. He could deal with this, some ride on a train. He shook his head, and met May's eye, unsurprised to see her mouth open- no protest waiting, but an assurance that he could wait if he wanted to. All the same his gaze silenced it, and with a smile that was far too knowing for somebody like her she pulled her arm away, leaving Kaiser feeling slightly alone as he stepped onto the subway beside them, moments before the door slammed shut.

"Bet you wish you'd gotten amnesia out in New Hampshire or something, huh?" Peter prodded, reaching out with almost unnatural speed to catch Kaiser by the upper arm when the subway jerked forward, nearly knocking him off his feet. "Hey, anyone got a seat for the concussion patient?"

"_Peter."_

_"Kaiser._ Wow, okay, your name is a lot more intimidating than mine, I think I'm actually going to shut up now."

Despite his embarrassment, Kaiser couldn't help a bit of a laugh. Luckily nobody seemed to heed Peter's comment, aside from one young boy who made the mistake of snorting and rolling his eyes from where he sat. A mistake only because May noticed him, and proceeded to give one of the most misleadingly-pleasant lectures Kaiser could ever imagine, let alone actually suffer through. The poor boy practically fled his seat.

He would have laughed, except she turned on him moments after and pointed toward the abandoned seat that nobody yet seemed brave enough to fill. "Arguing will get you nowhere," Peter warned, and Kaiser only nodded mutely. He sat down, slowly, fighting back an almost vicious sort of embarrassment. He needed their help, not their _coddling._

Fuming in annoyance-despite the quiet thanks he offered both the boy and May- proved futile as well, apparently, because not even a minute into his somewhat-sulking he opened his eyes from a brief pause to find the subway car almost empty, the doors open and floor stilled. The world different, as it always seemed to be after sleep had claimed him. It was a familiar sensation by now, so he only blinked off the remaining threads of drowsiness and let Peter aid him to his feet without conscious protest. He was glad to see the boy hurrying afterward to offer a hand to his Aunt, who had thankfully found a seat at some point.

Peter doubted that Kaiser remembered even a second of what happened from that point onward. They got him home easily enough, asking a few routine questions on the way, and Aunt May even talked him into dressing properly for bed. But aside from relaxing slightly inside the home, he gave no sign to show that he was fully aware of where he was- except maybe when he hit the bed, because he was asleep within seconds of lying down.

"Is this… normal?" Aunt May wondered, standing beside him outside the doorway once she had shut it closed, determined to give the man some privacy.

"So long as he doesn't start sleeping for longer intervals at a time, I think we're good," Peter promised. That many injuries were bound to take a lot out of a guy. "He's just tired, it'll wear off in a few days."

She seemed skeptical but satisfied for the moment. "Well, so long as he's there for dinner. You make sure he's not late, Peter Parker, or neither of you is getting anything," She brandished an imaginary cooking utensil in his direction, a smile on her face all the while, and left him in the hallway to go get something cooked up.

Peter's work was simple, but not short. He got the medicine set up in the cabinet pretty easily- all of it marked for "John Doe" as per hospital policy, despite the name everyone had willingly applied to Kaiser- but spent a long while after calling up favors and video-chat counseling with Gwen, planning out something of a life for their not-so-little "adoptee".


	3. The Real World is a Necessary Evil

**A/N: So this took me ridiculous amounts of time. I apologize profusely to all of you- I have more time to write during the school year than summer, actually, so updates won't be so delayed this long again! Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait, even though it's mostly foreshadowing.**

It was only three days before Kaiser's sleep patterns started to clear up, and during those days Peter almost never got a chance to speak with him. His grades, thankfully, never really suffered for all the time spent fighting villains out on the streets, but it was getting to the point where he spent every waking moment either battling or writing essays. Other than that, he was busy trying to work out a safety-net of sorts for Kaiser- and here he was infinitely grateful to Gwen, because she was not only much better at working things like that out but had more time to do it.

Which also sucked because, to the surprise of apparently nobody who met him except for Peter, everything female seemed to love being around Kaiser. Aunt May was happier when he was helping her in the kitchen, Gwen was more open than ever when he was around, and grouchy neighbors with violent dogs actually invited them over for tea. (_Tea._ Peter hadn't drunken tea in ten years, but apparently Kaiser's presence in a house made tea feel like a practical necessity. It was probably the British accent.)As for Kaiser himself, he didn't even notice. He caught odd looks on the street, or enticed strange smiles out of woman in the course of what he had believed to be normal conversation, but he was rarely in public enough to be concerned by this.

There really was little difference in staying at May's home as opposed to the hospital. The food, company, and spacing were welcoming, better by all accounts- but still Kaiser did little in his first three days but sleep. And read. The material available to him here was far more interesting than the hospital's storybooks, and he found himself enticed to stay awake in his desire to know more about what might be found between the covers.

There were thousands of ways to describe length, time, or weight, and thousands of ways those things could be used to teach why a pendulum swung or a rocket fired. The story of earth's creation and substance was readily available, as were detailed explanations about the politics and bloodshed that had brought the human race to where it was now. He knew nothing about how to drive a car or buy groceries, and yet he could recite his race's history to the letter. It was an odd sort of comfort, but the more Kaiser read and learned the more he felt he was making up for lost memory, and so he read, and read, and read.

And after three days, it stopped being the worst of all chores to keep himself awake long enough to read on. He started to insist on helping May wherever he could, in the kitchen, cleaning, repairs, whatever needed to be done. She was grateful but cautious, but he only found her concern endearing as he continued his work. He really should have known better, but it wasn't until after a week of work when he made the mistake of trying to carry some boxes from the basement upstairs for her that he realized her fears had a base in logic.

He was now lying on the couch, a cold bag of ice wrapped in too-soft fabric pressed over his forehead that helped in a way he was certain it medically shouldn't have, absorbed in a lengthy text about the uses for numbers, when Peter found him.

Kaiser hoped the boy was by now used to finding a near-stranger on his couch or at his table. He never showed any outward annoyance or confusion for it, at least, but even with all his ignorance he was aware of how abnormal the situation was and couldn't begrudge Peter any discomfort he might have for it. If he was annoyed Peter didn't show it, and the grin that lit his face as he spotted Kaiser was far from mocking. "You know, with the way Aunt May sounded on the phone I expected at least three gaping wounds. You disappoint."

"I'll be sure to fall down the stairs next time, maybe even break something for added suspense," He tried sitting up, but his head felt too hot for the attempt so he stayed as he was, watching Peter dump his backpack in the front hall.

"Make sure not to get too much blood on the steps, it's hell to clean out of the carpet." There was a chair across the coffee table, but Peter thumped, cross-legged, to the ground beside the couch rather than vacating it, tilting his head back to get a look up at Kaiser. "So, what happened? Aunt May just said you passed out."

"She was preserving my dignity- I swooned, it was minimally less dramatic and far less masculine. She brought me water and I managed to get here without help," Kaiser explained, waving his hand in a lethargic arc to encompass the living room. "I strained myself, that's all."

"Ya know, doctors orders specifically said something about _not_ lifting anything over thirty pounds for at least three months."

"Ah, there's my problem. Days, months, can't be bothered."

Before, they might both have been concerned by such a comment, but Kaiser was growing steadily more familiar with the world as others knew it. Facts of life, time, and physical reality were no longer a problem. "I'm gonna get you a calendar one of these days. So, listen, Gwen and I wer- is that my Calculus book?"

Kaiser glanced down at the cover of his current text and yes, the word was displayed proudly on the front, alerting the better informed world to its contents. "It was on the coffee table, and I couldn't get up to find anything else. I am very sorry, should I not have touched it?"

Now that he considered it, reading other people's books without permission could logically be considered very rude. "Nah, go ahead. Have you been reading a lot of my text books?"

The honest answer was yes, and there was no point in lying. Thinking about it now, Kaiser recalled at least five texts that he'd placed improperly after reading, and it was obvious in the aftermath that he had been going through Peter's schooling material and leaving it in the wrong spot once he had finished. He just assumed, when he was done reading, to place the book on the shelf. "Yes. I hope I did not hamper your work in any way." Barely conscious, and he was already causing them trouble.

But Peter seemed genuinely unbothered, though somewhat unsettled. "I found them when I needed them. Did you read the whole thing? All of 'em?" Almost reluctantly, Kaiser nodded. "And you understood everything?"

"Of course."

"Whoa." Clearly that was abnormal. Kaiser closed the book, feeling as if he'd done something wrong, and searched Peter's face for some sign of disapproval. There was none, yet, but that could change. What sort of man could absorb the entirety of a college-level textbook in mere hours and not even know his own name? "You know, I was going to tell you I'd gotten you a job at a café but I'm thinking I should just call up Oscorp."

Oscorp? "You got me- Peter, I don't even have an _I.D._" Working would be good, as soon as he was able, but… working meant coworkers and customers. It meant understanding people, and it meant legal complications he could not, in any legitimate way, overcome. He tried to sit up, failed once more, and Peter's hand lashed out to steady him before he had even fallen back a half inch. He was certainly quick. "Look at me, I can barely move."

"I didn't mean right this minute. Gwen's got a family friend, an ex-cop, who runs this coffee shop down the street. She said she'd take you on, papers or none, until we can sort everything out. You can start when you're ready- we thought about college or something, but that's too expensive and we want you to see if hanging out with people jumps your memory, not how many six packs you can chug in a day, so the job seemed better."

Peter looked hopeful, in his own way. It took Kaiser a long moment to realize he was hoping for approval, and wondered how he might show it. A smile was hesitant, but the message came across enough for the boy to grin, and slap him on the shoulder as he stood. Either that was a bizarre sign of affection, or people were far more abusive than the doctors had let him think. "Okay, okay, not like I'm rushing you to start. If you think you're not up to it, we'll scratch the idea. For now, try to avoid any heavy lifting, I want you up for a field trip tomorrow."

"A…?" They weren't going to a literal field, Kaiser could figure that much out considering their location and the general tone of Peter's conversations, but beyond that he couldn't much decipher the term. "I'm sorry, I do not-"

"Right, duh. Just means a trip that schools go on."

"We are not in school."

"You're reading my textbooks aren't you? Doesn't matter- sleep up, because we're going out tomorrow." Peter gave Kaiser a quick, condescending pat on the head and hopped to his feet. "So long as I finish my homework anyway. Hey, want to write me an essay on Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy?"

Teddy Roosevelt- Kaiser recalled the name with ease and, yes, likely could have written Peter's essay for him. The request he knew was a joke, but even so he was on the verge of assenting when an odd shiver went down his spine and he clamped his mouth shut. Not two seconds later, Aunt May's voice was preceding her in the doorway. "Peter Parker, if I see you so much as offer that man a pencil you will live to regret it."

By now Kaiser could tell that May's anger was rarely (if ever) genuine, and he smiled along with Peter at the warning. He would have loved to stand and greet her properly-she had, after all, been worrying about him without pause for the last half hour- but his muscles dragged through the air like syrup, and even a wave was draining. Really, what had he been thinking, lifting those damned boxes? "I can write in pen, no worries."

"Can you? Write, I mean." A legitimate question, actually, and one Kaiser would not have known the answer too if May hadn't tested it earlier. He nodded, and Peter decided to accept that at face value. "Sorry, probably a… bad question."

"Not at all. I have no idea what I do or don't know until someone asks me," Kaiser admitted, as matter-of-factly as such a sentence could be said. Neither of them seemed to pity him for it, for which he was always grateful. He did not think he would be very pleased if he'd ended in the hands of a family that treated him like an invalid for his amnesia.

Which, in some infuriating ways, he was.

May needed Peter's help with those boxes that Kaiser had failed to move, so after a brief moment the two of them took their leave. Now that his attention had been drawn from it he had no desire to return to the Calculus book, though there was little else he _could_ do. He'd been told the device across from him was a television, a machine he knew of from books but no more, and yet he was loathe to pick up the remote control that would seemingly flip it on. Half of what he saw would be fiction, half fact- and unlike with the genre label on a book, he would have difficulty at times deciphering one from the other. So none of that.

How was he meant to _work_ like this? A job would be good. Spending money of his own- and a way to repay them before he ended up in any true debt- and a chance to interact, to study strangers and coworkers for some hint of a life he may have known before. But he would be working on charity, because Gwen and Peter had gone out of their way to aid _him_. To earn him a job he likely wasn't even qualified for, whenever he wanted it, all because… because he had no other way of being any help, now did he?

_Useless._ Kaiser winced, one lethargic hand coming to press against his forehead, palm fighting off a sudden throb of pain from somewhere in the center of his brain. Not uncommon lately. (Or ever, perhaps- he had no way of knowing what had been common before.) No, not useless, only… wounded. It had been but a few days, he would recover eventually.

Another pain, not enough to startle Kaiser into successfully sitting up but enough for him to bury his head in his hands, teeth grinding together. He tried to reach for the water May had brought him earlier, when he originally collapsed, but withdrew his hand. Better not to risk dropping the glass- he knew these aches by now, they would only get worse before they passed.

The throbbing built to a soft humming, like the static of May's broken radio turned low, and Kaiser's hands went from his face to his ears, which did nothing but make him feel as though the sound were trapped inside, bouncing around in the confines of his brain. His teeth were pressed too hard together-he wondered if they could crack from this- and his eyes scrunched up tight. The worse it felt, the quicker it was over, so when the pain flared and buzzed it came as a relief more than anything.

And, as abruptly as a cut connection, it stopped. Kaiser blinked, grimaced, and with difficulty procured the water and swallowed the entirety in gulps that chased one behind the other without pause. At some point, he'd ended up wrenching his legs towards his chest, halfway to making himself into some sort of ball. Lip curled in distaste, he placed the glass unbroken on the ground and rolled onto his back, kicking his feet out to a more dignified position.

The headaches had begun during his second day at the hospital, at first such a shock and pain that he probably would have screamed himself hoarse if not for the nurse's immediate sedation. It was normal, they assured him, to feel pain and normal for it to linger and hound him down past the hospital steps. And because it was normal, Kaiser welcomed each 'incident'-as the nurses had called them- with near open arms. But that itself was masochistic, not normal, and he didn't like the pain so much as he liked knowing that he was meant to be feeling it. At least his body was working correctly, even if his mind wouldn't act as it should.

Whatever the time was, if Kaiser was going to be leaving the house tomorrow then he needed to sleep off that latest wave of headache. He shut his eyes, accustomed to being drawn into sleep after mere minutes of this, but almost immediately bolted upright- far, far too quickly. His head was swimming within moments, his body flushing with heat in protest, but he was too intent on not crying out to care much. The ache was back, as bad as it had ever been, and he felt himself shaking, gasping without any logical reason.

_Ca-n't-_ _hid-e fro-_ Kaiser swore, quietly, grateful that Peter and May were downstairs lest they hear him. There were thoughts running through his mind that didn't feel like his own- distorted, drawn out, wobbled and rising in inflection with each throb of pain. Stop, stop, go away, it wasn't _meant_ to last this long. He groaned, felt the thump of his head against the pillow and realized he'd fallen back, failing to hold himself upright. Fine. His eyes squeezed shut, as tightly as possible, but the throbbing, like pounding of drums in some foreign speech, did not cease.

If May or Peter came upstairs… Kaiser forced his eyes open and reached blindly for the book, vision nearly black from the ache, and only managed to hit his hand against the edge of the table. Ow. The other hand pressed to his forehead, trying in vain to fight back the headache, he continued to grope along the surface of the table, searching for the book. If he could pretend to be reading, at least, they wouldn't be worried if they came in and saw him.

His hand brushed something paper, but it was loose-leaf, a piece of Peter's homework perhaps. Kaiser cursed quietly in frustration, but that quickly turned into a gasp of pain, and he clutched the paper as his hand tensed, nearly crumbling it. Wonderful. He'd fix that later- his arm was heavy, and he had to find the book, even if he could see no more than blurred shapes quickly growing black. A remote control, a flower pot- his hand finally brushed the familiar cover of the textbook, but before he could do more than fumble for a grip on it the pain vanished for half a moment, then flared up with the sudden force to wipe his vision clear.

It could have been an hour later, or only five minutes, or half the day- all Kaiser knew when he managed to truly open his eyes, head buzzing with a muggy sort of exhaustion rather than that awful pain, was that he'd blacked out. Not fallen asleep, not grown dizzy and staggered, actually _fainted_ from a mere headache. He groaned, and ran both hands through his hair in frustration, taking a long moment to register that his limbs no longer felt too heavy to do that. Out for more than a few minutes then. If that happened tomorrow, while they were out…

Ah, well, it would make for a funny story at least. Without much consolation to offer himself other than that, Kaiser rolled onto his side, facing the ancient fabric of the sofa, and shut his eyes, determined to get a good amount of _actual_ sleep. Sad that he literally could not remember being physically well- he just wanted to feel _better_ already, so he might actually know what it was like to be healthy.

New York city, apparently, could be considered a large melting pot of not only people, but smaller sub-cities as Kaiser had taken to calling them, unsure how else to refer to the complete diversity from neighborhood to neighborhood. Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, Chinatown, Time Square, Little Italy, the Village…- each section was like its own little culture, and Kaiser was content to keep to as few of them as possible. So when Gwen arrived the next day and Peter promptly announced that their "field trip" would involve a subway trip to Manhattan during rush hour, he was less than excited. They assured him the crowds would be minimal, but from his experience with the city... Well, he was worried to say the least.

But after they had gotten onto the road that went only to the island, there was almost nobody about. No pedestrians, no cars, no passengers huddled together on rank leather seats. There was little other than a scattered handful of men and woman with grim expressions and durable work clothing. Kaiser felt oddly underdressed, though he didn't know what for, in nothing but the jeans and leather jacket Peter had procured for him.

At least it meant he could sit down without either of them embarrassing him yet again- as they had almost every time they entered a new subway train for any reason, even if they were just out of the house for perhaps half an hour. Gwen, surprisingly, was less overbearing than Peter, who took great delight in declaring that Kaiser was probably going to collapse if he didn't sit, and asking in the most annoying way he could if anybody would please help their poor crippled Brit.

"What happened, exactly, in this place we're going to?" Kaiser couldn't tear his eyes away from the empty seats- something about it looked… unnatural. Neither Gwen nor Peter appeared at all surprised, however, so they were clearly expecting this obscure lack of a crowd, so he assumed they must have known the reason for it.

Precisely why he spoke quietly, lest those few others on the subway hear his question. It was for his own convenience more than avoiding their questions- he'd noticed that people had the oddest tendency to be offended by his ignorance, as if he had lost his memory or never learned simply to make a mockery of the knowledge they coveted, even though his questions should have made it clear that he was doing his best to remedy that. "Long story or short story?" Peter had once done his best to explain. Amnesia meant he was an oddity, something they did not understand, and people feared things like that.

Kaiser simply could not fathom that. He didn't understand _anything_, and maybe it was all a little intimidating, frightening even. But he tried to immerse himself in those things he was ignorantly wary of, not shun them, and why not? He had no desire to leave in fear. "Long."

"Well, we don't actually know that version. These creatures flew in and attacked Manhattan not that long ago- the place is still in shambles, and we only know the guys who stopped the attack, not who started it or what they wanted. A few of them are usually there on most days, helping fix things up." Peter gestured out the window, where Kaiser caught the glimpse of one of few familiar views- the Manhattan skyline, a common feature from many of his books that he'd seen captured in thousands of photos online (that Peter, hearing him mention the buildings in passing, had insisted he view). But something was… wrong, and Kaiser realized with a sinking heart that there were whole buildings missing from the iconic sight, half-crumbled gaps amongst the glory.

"And we are allowed there?" Some unknown force attacked the city, destroyed it… Kaiser knew enough about government to imagine it would have been closed off.

"The relief effort takes all the help it can get." Gwen, like all New-Yorkers that Kaiser had yet seen, had the inborn ability to walk without the slightest unsteadiness from one end of a subway car to the other while it was not only in motion, but picking up rapidly from a brief stop to let on just one more passenger. She came and sat beside Kaiser, leaving Peter to pout across from them, and gestured out the window. One building stood high above the others, a survivor amongst the wreckage, further into the center of the city but still perfectly visible. At the top, a large metal 'A' declared the logo of some unknown entity, and Kaiser could only look to her for an explanation. "The Avengers, a bunch of superheroes. They run it, but more about that later. The point is, Peter and I realized you're wasting a perfectly good opportunity with your amnesia."

"I'm- Pardon?"

"Ask almost anybody you see- they'll tell you that humankind, as a whole, is glaringly flawed." Peter now, relenting and moving to join them when he saw Gwen was not going to move back. "It's easier for people to remember all the bad things that happened than the good."

"But you don't really know much of the bad, do you? So we want you to see something nice, just in case the world drives you crazy later on. Something pleasant to think back to."

Humanity, flawed? Kaiser had noticed flaws in everything he'd seen so far, but over all… he had been saved by two strangers, given a home while he needed it, clothes, books, food, and two overbearing friends who were already trying to get him on his own two feet again in terms of understanding and funds. He knew not everybody would have done the same, and he was lucky to be found by Peter and Gwen, but neither of them seemed abnormal.

There were worse things to be than human, really.

Kaiser did not know what he expected when they rose at last from the subway, but what he found certainly wasn't it. They were stopped the moment they stepped off the train and searched, though Kaiser less thoroughly than either of his companions, the bandage on his head marking him as no serious threat. They were led as a group out of one clearly marked entrance, the others they passed seemingly stuffed with rubble, and never let out of sight until they were well and truly above ground. It was odd- he'd read of characters being searched on their ways into buildings, usually airports or the like in the novels, but never upon _leaving_ them.

"It is kind of ridiculous though. The place is enough of a wreck already, and there's broken glass and metal all over the place. Hurting somebody wouldn't be too hard," Peter muttered, just out of earshot of one of the guards who had waited to watch them on their way. "And there's your first experience with human paranoia, Kaiser- remember it well."

"I'm going to pretend this time that that turn of phrase was on accident- don't count on being so lucky next time."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Stop it."

"Right, sorry, force of habit, I keep forgetting."

"Gwen, if I assault him and use amnesia to claim ignorance of the law you'll back me up, won't you?"

"Of course." Gwen was completely blank, but when Peter turned to her with a wounded stare she laughed minutely- not a giggle, the word reeked of idiocy she did not have, but something like it. "Seriously you two, no more bickering. This isn't the place for it."

Kaiser thought that was an odd thing to say in any part of New York, really, where almost all of the people he had come by did nothing _but_ bicker. Here though, he supposed he could see the point. Now that he was looking around, instead of responding to Peter's taunts, he saw that the city really was in shambles. There was a lot of noise from a little further off, where he could see machines taller than some of the shattered buildings at work, and people were darting all about, most of them digging through rubble or bringing supplies to those who were. He saw uniforms and T-shirts, adults and children, everyone able-bodied of course, and he began to wonder what he was supposed to do here. What he _could_ do here.

He was absorbed by the sight, now that he bothered to take it in. People lifting loads that seemed impossible for their sizes, calling for help when they needed it and immediately someone was _there_, no questions asked, giving them whatever they could. People called out gratefully at the sight of newcomers, waving and smiling grimly through faces choked in dust and plaster, while men and dogs darted about, pointing with their snouts at buildings or piles and barking themselves hoarse. Peter immediately rushed over to one such canine, assuring them he would be back quickly before vanishing down the street after the tail of a huge, black and brown animal.

"Search dogs," Gwen explained, catching his confusion. "They're looking for people who got caught when the buildings collapse- or pets too. We've found more cats then you would believe, though they always need some help. That's what I do, patch up survivors. The medical tent always needs help."

"Can I go there?" He'd read medical texts- not enough to really know how to work of course, but Kaiser was itching to test the knowledge, and if he could do it on somebody who really needed help… well, all the better. The quicker he paid the world back for the kindness he had been done, the better.

"Peter says you're smart enough, so yes. Stick with me, or they won't let you in," she warned, and Kaiser could only register that a teenager had more authority than most adults he had met before she was leading him off yet again.

May's fussy tendencies were not something he had ever expected to be thankful for-grateful, yes, but he would have preferred to avoid them- but after she had forced him to sleep, eat, and drink his way to health the day before Kaiser managed to maneuver his way through the rubble without even losing his breath. He did need help regaining his balance more than once, but he would accept his accomplishments in small doses.

They reached a somewhat in-tact hotel before long, the lobby of which had been converted into a scene far too reminiscent of days Kaiser preferred to ignore, bustling with volunteers and the stench of blood. The man Gwen directed him to was two inches shorter and about thirty pounds heavier than Kaiser, who snapped like a police sergeant and had breath tainted with pork. For the next few hours Kaiser was kept busy delivering supplies from doctor to doctor, wrapping wounds and sprains (on animals and humans alike), checking for concussions (he was sure that Peter was laughing at him, somehow) and, which he found he enjoyed best of all, talking to shell-shocked children, calming them down and convincing them to let the doctors take a look.

He loved… something about it. The way these people asked him for help, the way they looked at him with the gratitude he had worn since Peter saved his life, the way they said they would remember him and the way they _needed_ him. He knew that wasn't what he's supposed to find so exhilarating, but when Gwen arrived to check on him, she saw only that he was enjoying himself, and Kaiser supposed that was what mattered. He was helping people, and he liked doing it.

"You're not getting tired, are you? Because if you're going to faint, I'd rather you do it here than on the subway," she wondered immediately upon approach, laughing slightly as she said it.

Kaiser returned her smile, setting aside a just-shut bottle of iodine so he could stand and speak to her unencumbered. "Thank you, but no. I am fine. Has Peter come back yet?"

"He said he got caught up across the city, he'll meet us when it's time to head back home." Gwen was in constant contact with Peter, and vice versa. It was a little unsettling, really, because Kaiser could never quite manage to catch them with their phones out. "But I'm asking because everyone's getting worried. You're looking pretty pale."

Was he? Kaiser frowned, and turned around in search of a mirror. He felt fine, really, but then again he usually did until the moment his legs would no longer carry him, but it wasn't as if he'd done anything particularly strenuous today. He shook his head, intending to assure Gwen that it was coincidence only, when the volume from outside reached a new high, a brief roar of excitement load enough to drown out the medical din of their room. He flinched at the uproar, short as it had been, and turned quickly towards the windows, seeing nothing but the crowds, a few men and woman looking upward and smiling.

"Who is it this time?" One of the other nurses called, sounding somewhere between exasperated and amused.

Someone nearer the window peaked his head out the door, returning a few moments later to scoff and grin. "That spider kid's helping Iron Man fix some broken paneling. Your pretty boy isn't here."

The nurse flushed, and the two broke into a brief argument that, judging by the general expression of acceptance, was a common thing. Kaiser tried to focus on what they were saying, but the man's last words and his own curiosity were calling for attention as well, and the multi-tracked train of thought caused a light throb of protest in his temple after a moment or so. "There's no way I can phrase this eloquently. What just happened?"

"Come on, take a look." Gwen offered her hand, but Kaiser shook his head and insisted on walking alone, a little annoyed that he apparently looked bad enough that she felt the need to offer even though he _felt_ perfectly fine. He informed the doctor he was helping that he was stepping out for a moment, then followed her onto the street, tilting his head upward along with the crowd.

Most people had gone back to work, but a few were dawdling enough for him to follow their gazes up to the top of a decaying building, huge beams and panels of metal hanging off it like flaked skin. It was a little eerie, but Kaiser was paying far more attention to the two bright red shapes at the top of the building, one flying and one seemingly stuck to the walls.

Neither thing should be possible. _How_ was it possible? The one hanging on the building had his hands out, and even from this distance Kaiser could see thick threads connected seemingly to his wrists down to a large metal pole, currently being welded to the building by… a red and gold robot. Blue shot from its hands and feet, keeping it in the air, but… it wasn't _logical._ Kaiser ran through everything he had learned on physics and chemistry and other sciences Peter kept books on, but none of it gave much justification to keeping a thing like that so steadily in the air.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to work it out, and nearly swore in surprise when the robot stopped to give the boy on the wall a thumb's up, flipping back a mask to reveal a human within. A flying _suit._ It… apparently it was possible, and he could see it being _plausible_, really, but it still seemed strange that such a thing could exist. "That's a person?"

Gwen looked at him in surprise, but he could not imagine why (ignorant, of course, to the unusual strength of his own eyesight and how nobody else on the ground could see but the blurriest outline of the two red figures). "That's Tony Stark, sometimes known as Iron Man. You'll hear a lot about him if you turn on the news, and that's Spiderman- his identity is kept secret, but he likes to drop by to help out the older heroes." There was something fond in her teasing that was far too fond to be mere admiration for an unnaturally powered boy doing his part to help.

Superheroes. Well, he hadn't expected to see anything like that, not when the realistic books he read all denied fantasy or merely considered it wistfully. "And they're the ones who saved the city from this attack?"

"Iron Man was the most well-known of six. Spiderman showed up before that, but he was stuck in Queens and it was impossible to get here while everything was going on."

Gwen was the easiest to talk to about simple things like this, facts of everyday life. Even Peter had a hint of the usual tendency to take his time to make things sound like conversation- she just gave a textbook response. "Who were the others?" The man, Stark, must have finished the welding. He flew away, leaving Spiderman to keep it in place while he checked each side, made sure it was properly stuck on, before both moved on to the next dangerously loose piece of metal. Better to repair it than destroy it, though Kaiser imagined it would be much easier simply to throw it aside. The building was a mess already, why bother?

"Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. The other two never show up, so I don't know about them." Even from here, Kaiser could see that the two of them were making little progress on the building. "You'll talk to one of them eventually, they come by the medical room all the time. And you're smart enough to actually be interesting."

"With a name like 'Captain America' it is a little difficult to imagine intelligence."

"He's from the nineteen forties, so we give him a break there."

"Is that possible?" Kaiser had a momentary image of a seventy year-old man battling monstrous forces in the middle of Manhattan. It was not pretty.

Gwen smiled and quickly launched into an explanation as they returned to the medical lab, describing a young boy with severe physical frailty and a time period he knew better, thanks to the presence of an American history book or two, than he did this one. Kaiser attempted to listen with rapt attention, but he couldn't help a final glance for the airborne man, who had turned to give a quick wave to the crowd below. He hesitated for a moment, long enough for Stark to look toward their building, and he could have sworn that the man stopped, staring down at him through the mask before turning around to work once more, and Kaiser walked away still able to tell himself that it meant nothing.

**A/N: Rest assured, Tony will be here in the next chapter, which will mostly be about Loki's cafe-ing adventures.**


	4. So A Norse God Walks into a Bar

**A/N:** **I bet you all thought I'd died or something, huh?**

**Nope! I just had a novel to write and college to apply for, but now I am free! Mostly. Anyway, I apologize for the delay and I hope this delay makes up for it. Warning that there will be some OCs in this chapter (because Loki's coworkers couldn't easily be canon characters), but they're not going to be major. Also, I apologize for the implied /OC, but that's again a one-time thing just to show that even without his memory Loki is, in almost all aspects, still Loki.**

Setting Kaiser up with the café was Peter's self-proclaimed work of genius.

The owner, an ex-cop, would go through any layer of favors for Gwen's sake, and she had been too curious about Kaiser to even act grumpy about agreeing. It wasn't a place Peter went to all that often before he and Gwen started dating, but he had been sort of forcefully acquainted with it, and didn't feel there was any risk of culture shock, not after how well their amnesiac had dealt with the cleanup group. It was a tiny place, about the size of a classroom, with a cozy little loft upstairs where people liked to drink their coffee and read. (Said loft was also currently attached to a room that had once housed the owner, Linette, herself, but now contained only boxes full of linoleum wrap and cardboard cup holders that even Peter was more than a little reluctant to actually go into, lest he be buried under reasonably- priced kitchenware.)

She had been complaining about the need for a waiter for years. A bad leg had forced her to quite the force and trumping up and down the stairs wasn't an easy option. But all of her employees were relatives of former coworkers or long-time customers, Linette didn't trust anybody enough to let them deal with her clients. Peter had already regretfully refused the job twice, and Gwen probably many a time more than that.

Okay, so an amnesiac British guy with a scar as big as Peter's hand wasn't exactly trustworthy, but they'd vouched for him and prodded until Linette had consented for an interview. Not that poor Kaiser really knew what an interview _was_, but he was currently kicking the process' ass with only natural effort, as Peter had expected. Like he'd said, genius.

Gwen wasn't any less optimistic, though she only showed it by smiling over her cup as they watched Kaiser talk their hard-faced friend into a blinking state of awe. "I don't know how he does it, she loves him. I thought she was going to shoot him when he walked in the door, now she looks read to fall at his feet."

"Yeah, he has that effect on girls." Peter had a plastic bottle of milk in hand (plain, he'd lost the taste for chocolate),and the barista was giving him dirty looks from behind her counter. "I think his sweat gives off some weird hormone or something, he can't just be _that_ good."

"Maybe it's the accent. Clearly it's something strange, because he definitely doesn't have your outstanding eloquence and charm on his side," Gwen taunted with the appearance of entire severity, nodding with a solemn half-frown. "Wow, she's completely smitten. I never thought I would use that word, but smitten she is. How is he going to get around work?"

"It's walking distance, I'll go with him for awhile, at least until he stops looking like a street- robber's wet dream. Seriously, he's so helpless I think even I'm tempted to rob him sometimes."

The latter part of that final sentence was a certain exaggeration (though the barista didn't seem to realize this and now looked highly concerned on top of annoyed) but the former was true enough. Kaiser was improving, but though he looked healthy enough to serve a few cups of coffee up and down the stairs it was obvious he wasn't going to be available for much else. Maybe that was part of why Linette was watching him with such genuine consideration- there was definitely no threat in a guy who could barely sit up straight. Weakness wasn't usually a prerequisite for employees, but Peter had given up on "usual" about the same time he developed the ability to stick to the ceiling of subway trains.

The job had pretty much been in the bag from the moment Linette agreed to an interview, so nobody (except probably Kaiser himself) was exactly surprised when she stood up to shake his hand, saying a few parting words that probably had something to do with the boring legal part of working. Peter watched the two throw this mumbo-jumbo back and forth a moment, then grinned broadly and gave a few dramatic claps as Kaiser walked toward them, expression even more of a daze than was usual.

"That was a very frightening woman," he admitted in way of explanation as he joined them. Gwen gave him an understanding smile, and offered the cup of tea they had bought for a similar purpose, but Peter only shrugged.

"Just wait until she gets mad, it's terrifying."

"Not as much so as May, I am sure?"

"Well Aunt May's a special case, she could probably force supervillains to their knees with a single glare."

"Super what?"

"Don't worry about it."

"When do you start working, Kaiser?" Gwen wasn't concerned with the revelation of supervillainy, they had after all shown him a city leveled by its results, but they had decided it was probably best not to give too many details. Kaiser had enough to worry about without suspecting everyone he met to whip out a magic ray gun or something.

There was a pause as Kaiser sipped his tea, and another as he frowned ever- so- slightly over the rim in apparent thought. "Saturday. That's… two days. One of the employees will be showing me what to do. I don't know how to make coffee, or deal with customers- I am worried I'll only disappoint you both."

"I dunno, I think coffee selling's a little easier than advanced physics, but I may be wrong." Kaiser didn't actually seem so sure of this, so Peter made a note that sarcasm should be reserved for unimportant situations in the near future. "It's nothing tough, you'll have it all down in ten minutes, tops."

"And if I faint?" This hadn't happened in about a week, but Kaiser hadn't been doing much physical activity, either, and the genuine concern in his eyes was mimicked more or less in Gwen's frown. Peter knew the man was more worried about his work habits than his health, but he shared his girlfriend's anxiety over the latter.

"Linette knows what's up. You feel dizzy you can go lie down, that's what breaks are for."

Kaiser didn't look exactly certain, but he was determined to do some kind of work, and so with a shrug somewhere between nonchalant and a simple excuse for movement the man consented. Peter didn't think there was much reason to freak out like this- judging by the way the barista was watching her new coworker, he was going to get along in this place just fine.

* * *

Work was a strange experience.

It took Kaiser less than a day to become familiar with the routine of working in the shop, yet much of the job could not be classified as routine business. He couldn't, for example, guess what sort of person he would next be serving, or how many, or who would spill their drink and where they might do it. The innovation was a little bit fun at first, but even with the guidance of Anna and Kim (his two coworkers) it was also extremely overwhelming.

Peter and Gwen were, in most ways, stables. He was learning what to expect from them, and even beginning to understand May, and while the woman he worked with were strangers yet they were at least constants he could learn to know. But this constant flow of people… regular customers were a dream of sorts, a break from the near-frantic demands placed on him with each new wave of weary New Yorkers, but even those were few and far between. (Peter and Gwen were, of course, the most common- every day he worked they would stop by, and when they could stay for a drink or two, as well as to provide their embarrassing check-ups on his well being, or to help him home. He felt half like a child, but comforted all the same.)

Mostly it was just oddities. Kaiser would have been terrified by it all, but he found it helped to sort those he served into groups- upstairs were usually two types. The young ones ('teenagers', who Kim always divided into Hipsters, Jocks, Wannabes, and other words he couldn't quite understand) and the haggard adults on their labtops, many of whom were finely dressed while others made up the most slovenly of the café's visitors. And downstairs all sorts took their breaks- mostly it was the rushing working or learning class, a phone almost always under the ear and labtop or textbook tucked away until the final destination was met. Not the most polite, but the least involved, and so usually Kaiser's favorites.

There was always somebody each hour or so who would complain loudly of the prices- as though he had been the one to set them- and another who spent five minutes or upward deciding which drink suited their current fancy. Around the afternoon Kaiser saw swarms of younger customers, most of whom spent only the time it took to purchase their orders actually inside the shop but quite a bit more lingering outside, and by evening things simply became weird.

One man had demanded his coffee be prepared five different times over, until the taste was just right, and then become so frustrated that he demanded to see the manager and argued with Linette for quite some time over why he deserved a free drink. A woman had wandered in drunk, and Kaiser had become so flustered in attempting to deal with her that the girls had needed to come and rescue him from his own confusion. Though that had actually become a bit of a frequent occurrence, unfortunately- only once did he have to take the reverse position, when some upstart boy decided he had the right to demand a good deal more than coffee from Kim. Kaiser, seeing she had no desire for this and knowing she had no interest in men at all, had made himself dizzy for a day after by grabbing the boy around the collar and throwing him rather forcefully out the door.

Silence had followed, and not the sort Kaiser assumed was positive. He had expected to be fired, or threatened, but Linette had only asked him to take up night shifts in the recent future.

Which had led to this, a late Friday evening sweeping up the shop an hour or so past closing, while Anna went through inventory with the back door swung open for conversation. It had been nearly two weeks since he had begun working there, and his health had recovered enough that headaches were few and far between, and lifting had become a simple task. Kaiser was glad for it, of course, but more so glad that the wound on his head was more of a scar now, though it was by no means pleasant to look it, even if Anna constantly told him how interesting it was. The girl enjoyed inventing her own stories for how it may have come about, and Kaiser never stopped her. They were interesting at the least, if not quite comforting.

"Maybe you walked in on a robbery- or, even better, I bet it was a drug transaction. Like a big one, with public politicians and cops involved and everything, and they just whacked you with the briefcase to shut you up," she suggested eagerly. "Or maybe it was a wild animal attack."

"Well those squirrels are rather fierce," Kaiser agreed absently, a slight hitch in his voice as he raised one of the tables enough that he might sweep underneath it. It was amazing what a mess one small room could accumulate in the course of a few hours, sometimes he thought people must be putting in a good deal of literal effort to accomplish it. (Of course, there were kids like Peter, who came in with their skateboards and forgot until someone like Gwen alerted them to the problem. Kaiser hardly minded, though- he loved the chance to be doing something, so long as he didn't work long enough to bring up another headache.)

Anna chose to bypass his little commentary, rather than run the risk of forgetting her next theory. "Or maybe the Alice statue came to life and beat the shit out of you. That's the one you were next to, right?"

"So Peter tells me. I don't know, really. I haven't gone to the park yet, or at least I don't recall it."

"Seriously? Don't you want to look for a clue or anything?" This was followed by the usual thumping of boxes that meant Anna had finished her counting quickly and was in the process of shoving materials back onto the shelves. As Kaiser was almost done with his cleaning, this meant an early night- free time he didn't quite want. "Knowing nothing about you must suck."

"It's not awful, I think. It's… frightening, is all." Everything was a threat. Kaiser knew he viewed things the same way a child might, as new and threatening and best left avoided. Yet unlike a child he had no mother or father to cling to in his fright, and he could hardly count Peter as anything but a younger brother, so while his company was welcome, he had the feeling it was an inadequate substitute. For what, though, he couldn't say. "I'm learning."

The last of the tables cleaned and dirt exiled to the trashcan, Kaiser bypassed Anna as she exited the closet to enter it and set the cleaning supplies out of the way. She waited outside as he shut the lights and door, and then stepped in with the keys to lock it. "But you're an adult- do you even know what a kiss is?"

"From what I've read it seems to be when two people enjoy each other's company enough to smash their mouths together. I can't imagine it's pleasant."

"Well it is. Seriously." He must have looked suspicious, because Anna huffed up in indignation that quickly turned to a wily sort of grin as she pondered the situation, which Kaiser wasn't particularly comfortable having aimed toward him. He shifted uncomfortably, resting against the counter for something to do. "Try it. Hold still, okay?"

"Um, what-?" Kaiser expected it, really, but he still jumped an inch or so when she snatched him up and pressed her lips to his. It really was just clumsy, for a moment, but somewhere in his surprise Kaiser had brought his hands to the girl's waist, and her own locked around his neck, pulling him closer with a surprised but amused little laugh.

It was a rare moment when he remembered anything, but this was the first time his body gave him cues with no mental recollection. It was a vaguely foggy experience, from a thinking standpoint, and by the time they separated and Kaiser could actually think a moment he was a little breathless and a good bit embarrassed. "Um- I'm not quite sure- that was startling."

"Fun though?"

"Forward. Fun, but somehow I doubt May would approve. Do people generally kiss strangers?"

"Some. You're not a stranger, Kaiser, you're an attractive British coworker with memory loss. Call it… exploring." Anna was still close, but Kaiser supposed he was to blame for that- his hands hadn't moved, and he was on the verge of pulling them away for tact's sake. Yet he was curious, and no harm seemed to have been done for it, so he stayed as he was.

"Well, I did say I was trying to learn."

"Then call Peter and tell him you're staying in the upstairs room for overtime or something, you're not done learning yet."

* * *

Very little of genuine consequence may have come from this little… episode of sorts had Anna not been such a fan of her phone. Kaiser, needless to say, had been more than keen to sleep in until their shift at work began, but she had no head wounds hindering her ability to actually rest when she slept, and so pestered him for about an hour while he was still in the realm of semi-consciousness.

"You know, you are really adorable right now. Mind if I post a picture?"

Anna no doubt had her camera out and poised, but Kaiser couldn't quite drag his head up to actually look. He registered only that he was at least half covered by a blanket, and turned with his scar hidden against the pillow, and felt this was enough to mumble some noise of consent. Of course, Peter's warnings that he may be best keeping himself secret never even jumped to mind, and so it was that a picture of himself lying between rumpled bed- sheets ended up on the screens of SHIELD's virtual security team.

Kaiser wouldn't have known to be concerned by this even if he were fully aware, and so there was certainly nothing unhappy in his manner when he and Anna finally returned to work. As was usual on Saturdays, Peter and Gwen took up a table for homework within two hours of the store's opening, and were back in the business of amusing themselves by taking up his time with inane questions. (Or, at least, Peter was- Gwen may have smiled infrequently, but she never actually joined in the distractions.)

"So you're sure green tea lattes don't come with a shot of caramel?"

"Peter, you hate green tea. I can give you caramel, but you're chancing at an expensive joke."

"Hey now, customer's always right. And I say green tea goes with caramel."

"Give me the five dollars and you're welcome to prove me wrong."

The sad part was that Peter actually took this chance to dive for his wallet, and Kaiser had no doubt he would have gone through actually paying if they hadn't been interrupted by a sudden, collective girlish gasps and equally numbered mutterings of admiration or awe. It wasn't often the people in this place agreed on… well, on anything, so Kaiser pardoned himself quickly and glanced up, but saw nothing more impressive than a well dressed man holding a rather ostentatious suitcase making his way into the shop, and quite a few people stopping to stare and nudge their friends if they didn't happen to have noticed yet. Even Peter had suddenly frozen, with a look of adoration that had Gwen rolling her eyes.

"Am I missing something?" He wondered at a whisper, unsure if it would be appropriate to say this at a volume that might be overheard. The man wasn't paying him much attention though, so dangers seemed low- he simply slid into a seat as though oblivious to the stares and absent-mindedly began to flick through a menu, not looking altogether impressed.

"Yeah, you kind of are," Gwen admitted with one of her typical half-laughing smiles, "but don't worry about it. Go get that guy his food, I'll handle Peter's fanboy breakdown."

Kaiser nodded and drew himself up as she, still laughing quietly, leaned forward to snap her fingers repeatedly in front of Peter's dazed expression. He smiled at the boy's amusing awe but spared them no more than that minute glance- apparently this was an important customer, no good to keep him waiting, especially as the man had set down his menu after about ten seconds of browsing it.

"I take it you are ready to order, sir?" The man glanced up at his voice, wearing the oddest expression, entirely blank but for something in his eyes that had Kaiser stepping back nervously.

But it cleared up with a shake of the man's head, and after he'd watched him a moment longer he nodded, flipping open the menu to tap, seemingly randomly, on an order. "Yeah, get me that. And an espresso, biggest size you've got. Shot of…I dunno, vanilla, sounds fun."

Fun coffee. Well, not the most usual of terms, but hardly obscure. Kaiser jotted down the order, confirmed it, and went on his way with a brisk smile. When he carried the sheet off to Kim he found the girl watching him in a way that clearly suggested she found him moronic. "Oh what have I done now?"

The paper was snatched away and handed back to Jack (their cook for actual food, who was excessively unfriendly and avoided Kaiser to the best extent of his ability) and a sharp gaze turned on him, even as Kim went about making the coffee. "That's Tony Stark. How do even you not know that?"

"Pardon?"

"Tony Stark. Iron Man. The superhero."

"Oh, yes- I know him. Really? I expected something a touch… grander." Kaiser glanced back over his shoulder towards the man, shorter than Peter and himself by far, and found nothing that might mark him different than any ordinary business worker. There was a faint light beneath his shirt, but he supposed that was just a phone shining through. "He's so small."

"What'd you expect? Not everybody can be tall, dark, and British like you." Kim set the espresso down on a small platter and nudged it to him, nearly knocking the unfortunate drink off the counter, then took advantage of the freed empty space to rest her folded arms on it. "He lives on the opposite end of town, no idea what he's doing in here at ten in the morning. He look drunk to you?"

"No, he was sober. Perhaps he had work out here?"

"A rich guy like him still doesn't stop by places like this. He could get beans flown in and hand picked from Cuba if he wanted to."

"Perhaps he's in a hurry. Or lazy."

Kim shrugged, but Kaiser could tell she was dissatisfied with such an explanation, so he picked up the tray and turned away, speaking over his shoulder as he went. "Oh very well, I'll weasel something out of him. But don't get too excited, I'm sure he's not here for anything special."

It would take awhile yet for Stark's food to finish preparing, so Kaiser felt natural enough bringing him his drink a little early. He set it on the table with a few required pleasantries then straightened up and tucked the platter underneath his arm as he made to leave, stumbling slightly in his step and hesitating as if his eye had just now been drawn to the briefcase. "What an unusual color- do they usually come in red and gold like that?"

"Nope, custom made. Benefit of being me, I guess," Stark was clearly more interested in his drink than conversation, but still Kaiser leaned over slightly for a proper look, noting that the briefcase seemed to be made of metal. It was mostly a ploy, his interest, but he really couldn't help being intrigued.

"I can't imagine what you would need a thing like this for. Most of the people who come in just keep a few files with them." Kaiser knew better than to reach out and touch a stranger's property, so he simply rose, now, done with all the inspecting his eyes alone could do. "I don't see a lock, though, why such a protective case?"

Stark didn't seem to like the question much. "I don't take the best care of my things, call it a precaution if you want."

"Against what?" Kaiser wouldn't get his answer, however. At that moment Jack called impatiently to let him know Stark's food was ready to come out, and with a quick apology for taking the man's time he hurried off to comply.

Kim was waiting with the plate and a curious expression at the counter, but he could answer her with no more than a shake of his head. "I really do think it's just business- maybe he prefers to eat out. Not everybody has expensive tastes just because they can afford expensive food," he replied quickly, before she could tease him for his failures in casual interrogation. He hadn't had enough time to get much else out of the man, unfortunately. "He's a hero you said, it can't be anything devious."

"Who says heroes can't be devious? Actually, who says 'devious'?"

"I do, I read it in a book. Do people not use that word?"

Kim tsked and shook her head, mouth twisted in a sympathetic grimace. "Yeah, honey, no. Don't believe books all the time, you'll end up like Anna."

"Not necessarily a bad thing."

"She thinks you were attacked by a magic statue."

"Perhaps she's correct, then who'll look foolish?"

"Oh just go serve your devious superhero and shut up, you have other customers. We should get Stark out of here before Peter's fanboy drool creates a lake or something."

That did seem to be a danger, so with another laugh Kaiser stood and turned, again looking back as he went, intending to offer some reply. Yet when he did he saw Kim had her eyes fixed on something past him and was midway through a yelp of surprise. Startled, expecting some robber or something of the sort, Kaiser began to turn around, only for something to close around his neck the moment it was halfway exposed.

The platter fell to the floor with an awful noise as the contents shattered, but Kaiser paid it little attention. His hands automatically reached up to try and tug those around his throat away, but his attacker had him raised half a foot off the ground, and the constriction was, as a result, already keeping the blood and clarity from his head. Metal, that much he could tell, cold and unyielding, no matter how he scrambled to undo the grip.

"Sorry if I'm not in the mood for your games, Loki. Enough joking around- how did you get out of Asgard? What are you doing back here?" A mechanic voice demanded, accompanied by a slight increase of the pressure, cutting away what little air intake he'd actually been receiving.

Loki? Something about the word drew Kaiser's attention, but he couldn't focus, he couldn't even breathe. He tried to speak, to say he had no idea what was happening or what these questions meant, but all he managed was an incoherent choking gasp, and eventually nothing more than the movement of his lips. Attempting to form words with a meaning he was quickly forgetting, while his attempts to fight his way free grew rapidly weaker.

This pity act of Loki's was beginning to piss Tony off more than he might have normally thought possible. The god was a good performer, he'd give him that, but if he was going to keep this up and refuse to answer… well Fury had been pretty clear, and for once he'd agreed with the Director's methods- if Loki didn't cooperate, no use keeping him around.

"Three seconds, Maid Café," He warned. Loki wasn't a complete idiot, if he didn't take the threat seriously it was his own fault. And the god didn't seem on the verge of speaking, so Tony began to power up the repulsor, a steadily growing light- firing from this close, point blank at the neck? Even Loki wouldn't walk that one off easily. "One-"

JARVIS, ever faithful as he was, alerted him to a rapidly approaching object to the left, about the same moment that object knocked into the side of his face plate and sent him crashing through the nearby table (evacuated, obviously; most people had either packed up and left or scrambled away from their seats in confusion when Tony'd warned them to shut up about his getting the suit on), not enough to hurt but enough that the wood snapped beneath him, and sent him ungracefully to the floor.

_Now_ people started to panic- and really, who could blame them? Peter figured it was probably pretty weird seeing one superhero come up and smack another one through a table. "I just punched Iron Man. Oh my god. I'm never washing this fist again." Wait a second… "Oh my god, I just punched Iron Man! Shit, uh- hey, sorry man, but that's my friend-"

He dove to the side almost before he realized he'd done it, the spider sense practically dragging his body along with it. Still, Stark's repulsor blast singed the side of his arm- more damage done to the fabric than his skin at that low level of power- and would have hit him square in the chest a millisecond sooner. There was a soft clanking of machinery as Iron Man got to his feet, and instinctively Peter took up his own fighting pose, hovering just in front of where Kaiser had hit the ground, chest heaving and completely unresponsive to the efforts his coworkers were making to help him.

Thankfully, Iron Man did no more than raise his hand and light it up, though he almost seemed to be glaring through that mask. Which was of course impossible, but still a little disturbing. "Back off before you get hurt, kid. He's not who you think he is."

"Really? Cause it looks to me like he's a guy who was trying to sell you some food. What's wrong, didn't like the coffee or something?" It felt weird, throwing this sort of banter at Stark- he knew him, sort of, they'd worked together more than once at the rebuilding site. He was a good guy, something must have been up for him to go after Kaiser like that- but the fact still stood that he _was_ going after Kaiser. "What happened to role models these days? Armed assault isn't really the best- whoa, hey!"

Another near miss, but this time when Peter looked up from his dodge it was just in time to see Iron Man shooting towards him before he was caught around the waist by a metal grip, and they both went flying out the door.

It was propped open on nice days like this, or Peter would have caught a back full of glass- he didn't have much time to appreciate though, considering he was trying to break out of the grip of a superhero amongst superheroes. "Whoa, come on, not cool man."

Neither of them wanted a fight, or this could have gotten pretty ugly from here- especially, much as he hated to admit it, for Peter. He was still pretty new to this business and Iron Man was… well, Iron Man. And also now dangling him a few hundred feet in the air, though that would have been the easiest part of all this to remedy. "You be a good boy and swing off to deal with some more reptiles. I have a mass murderer to catch, and you're not making it any easier on me."

"Mass murderer? Dude, have you seen that guy? He faints when he has to lift too much, he'd have trouble killing a fly!" Bad idea to give this much info to Stark- superheroes weren't supposed to know that much about random waiters. Then again, the place had plenty of regulars and most of them knew Kaiser by name now, so maybe he could pass it off if it came to that. Bigger problems for now.

"See, here's the thing, he's lying. It's a pretty easy thing to do, I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Ouch."

"This isn't the time for joking around, kid! Stay out of this."

Peter knew it was only because the man knew he'd be fine, but he was still more than a little insulted when he was dropped a moment after this comment. Iron Man probably thought he'd swing off with his tail between his legs, but there was a phone poll nearby, and on thinking quickly Peter managed to catch it with his web and loop around, very nearly smacking into some pedestrians, to shoot off again, this time colliding into Stark a second before he pinpointed the café again.

He would have been impressed with his own quickness, but the other man didn't seem too appreciative of being kicked in the face, and Peter didn't have many handholds up here. By the time he swung off again Iron Man was already back at him, and this time the repulsor that nicked his shoulder burnt enough to do some minor damage. It wouldn't kill him, but it wasn't a friendly match anymore.

Okay, rude. Peter didn't know what he was planning to do, but he did know that once Kaiser was in a hospital he'd be safe from misjudging superheroes, and so rather than do the smart thing and call for a truce, he shot a string of web at the armor's eye slots. Iron Man just tilted his head to avoid them, but he revved up a second later, and Peter knew he had the distraction he needed.

If he could keep from getting his ass kicked in the next ten minutes.

Running would just be stupid, so he quickly scrambled to the top of a building, hoping to get some ground available, and ducked and rolled to avoid yet another beam. Iron Man knew better than to fly over the roof, though, and it wasn't like Peter had many effective attacks from this distance. The suit, however, had plenty. If he could just break the repulsors…

Not too likely, considering how quickly they fired at him. Peter swung off to the safety of a billboard to avoid another barrage, but this time kicked immediately off again, carrying himself just far enough to throw a mid-air (and probably really impractical) punch. It missed, to no great surprise, but he spun as best he could and shot one web to the brick building to his left, the other towards the armor's jets. Iron Man saw what he was doing, and though he didn't quite move his foot in time to protect it, he did immediately grab hold of the web and tug, throwing Peter off-balance before the other could catch against the building.

And then he turned, obviously intending to fly around with Peter stuck like this. Okay, bad idea- he quickly detached the web and tumbled to the ground, fairly close thanks to the length of the web, and rolled as he hit it, coming into a defensive stance just as Iron Man crashed to the ground in front of him. The café was behind his back, now- no chance of the man just walking through.

"You're making a big mistake, Kid." Stark warned as he stepped forward, slowly enough to give Peter the obvious chance to think. "I'm not going to hurt anybody, he can take a lot more than you think he can. Just trust me on- what? Fury the hell are you doing? I'm working. JARVIS screen my calls or someth- huh?"

It took Peter a moment to realize he was speaking into the helmet, to somebody he couldn't hear right now. His defensive position didn't waver, but he did frown slightly beneath the mask, not sure if this was a sign for or against him.

* * *

Amongst the entire crowd, many of whom had seemingly remained out of curiosity, Gwen had been the only one with the foresight to immediately call for an ambulance, but until they arrived Kaiser had nobody to count on but his coworkers. Not necessarily a bad thing in most circumstances, but none of them, even Linette, had any extensive medical training, though she had at least stopped them from CPR. Kaiser had air. He didn't really _want_ it, not now when each breath seemed to rip open his throat, but he had it. He didn't need breath, or maybe he did- it was hard to tell, every part of his neck was hurting too badly for guesses of his own.

And he could taste blood- he couldn't see who it was, probably Anna, but somebody had actually come near to fainting when they bent over him and, as far as he could guess, found his lips red and trails of blood falling from the corners of his mouth. He could taste and feel it, though why it was a problem was hard to tell right now. There were people crowding around him, panicking, and meanwhile he was almost relieved.

Loki. The man had called him that- an odd name, to be sure, but it felt right to hear, probably right to say (though he could hardly test now), and certainly right to think. Loki. Kaiser was nothing but a string of letters to him, but this had the ring of something that belonged, something that was his. With or without his memory, he was sure o it.

"-iser!" That voice was loud, and familiar. He grimaced and tried to focus on it, but his head swam as much as the image did, and it seemed a vain effort. "Kaiser, hey, listen to me okay? We're getting a hospital, you need to stay awake. Okay, just don't fall asleep. Oh god, are you okay?"

Peter's voice, that was it, but why was he dressed so strangely? The boy was nothing but a blur of red. He looked up at him for a moment and smiled weakly, almost oblivious to what had been said. "He knew my name," Loki muttered.

And the next moment dropped his head back in a dead faint.

**A/N:Whee? See, I kept the OCs minimal because I love you guys. The story just kind of called for them, sorry folks.**

**Anyway, no more of the name Kaiser now, so sorry to those who enjoyed it.**


	5. Reunions Of the Worst Sort

**A/N: Hey guys look I'm actually alive! Hurray. Er, enjoy the chapter- I hope it clears up some questions, since I have waited so long to answer them.**

"Stark, do you mind telling me what the everloving _fuck_ you thought you were doing?"

A question Tony had been getting quite a lot lately. He hated it when people asked that- much less passive aggressive and much more time effective to just say they thought he was an idiot. He sighed with little tact and turned a bored expression on Fury, more amused than concerned by the emotion he was met with. There was probably a reason the Commander was named as he was. "Capturing Loki, who, I might add, _you_ sent me after."

"In the middle of a god-damned cafe?"

"What did you expect me to do, lure him outside for a nice stroll? Loki's not a moron, he would have caught on. He could've killed half the people in that place before I even put on the suit."

"So you grabbed him by the throat and choked him? In _public?_" Fury snarled- really, snarled. He was literally baring his teeth at Tony, though he doubted the man realized he was doing it. It was both hilarious and strangely terrifying, though unfortunately for Fury the former was the more prevalent response.

Natasha gave him a warning look from across the table, but Tony had ignored more severe glares from Pepper on a daily basis for years. "Yeah, I did. What did you expect me to do, invite him to pistols at dawn?"

"I expected you to handle the situation with _caution._ A five year old would have noticed something was up. I ought to reassign you to secretary work, Stark, because I sure as hell don't want you on the field after that!"

Like Tony was afraid of Fury's orders- he wasn't like Natasha, he could act outside of SHIELD's direction when he wished, and they both knew it. So he only raised one eyebrow, though it was perfectly possible the threat would be played out before he even left this room, and watched with some amusement as a vein throbbed in Fury's temple. Of course Nat couldn't just let this go, it pained her to watch his idiocy in action sometimes, and, perhaps luckily, the woman cleared her throat to draw their attention before things could escalate to the dealing out of actual repercussions.

"I don't think Stark was thinking things through as clearly as he could have, Sir. Loki is a sore spot for all of us." Tony nodded, only somewhat sarcastically, and waited as Natasha studied him, as seemingly blank-faced as ever. "He was probably afraid."

Tony went rigid at the words, his cocky smile degraded to a less-than-pleased frown, and his eyes turned to the blank wall as everyone else's went straight to him. Only four sets (one incomplete), but three of them belonging to people he'd rather not be getting into the topic of fear with, not if he could help it. Leave it to Natasha to ruin his good mood.

"You were scared, Stark? Of a scrawny god with no powers?" Fury sounded somewhere between pissed and astonished, rolling his eye when Tony turned to him with a blank look. "You're Iron Man! A super hero does not get scared of waiters!"

"To be fair, we're talking about Loki. He seems like he's helpless now, but for all we know it's all an act." Bruce cut in, giving up his pretending-not-to-be-there act in favor of defending Tony. "Loki tricked us before, I wouldn't be surprised if he's up to it again."

"You should've just blasted him in the head, Stark. Saved me the trouble," Clint muttered, the first noise he had made, to Tony's knowledge, since he'd told the archer a week ago that he'd seen Loki at the construction sight. Ever since intelligence had pulled up that picture of him all he'd been doing was twirling an arrow in his hands wherever he went and... staring. It was kind of creepy, actually.

"I already told you, Barton, nobody kills Loki until I find out what he's doing here and if he's got another army coming with him. I've got no word from Thor, and I don't want to make a move without Asgard's approval," Fury spoke slowly, as he always did with them, like one might to a child. A child who you really wanted to kick through a wall.

Clint glared, but said nothing, only went back to twirling and watching his arrow as if he had never seen anything quite like it before. That, unfortunately, meant Fury went straight back to Tony, who was finding it harder to meet his gaze. "Well, Stark?"

"I don't see why it matters- we say a criminal took his identity, apologize, pay a few hospital bills and nobody would know. Shapeshifters would not be the weirdest thing to happen to this city."

"It matters, Stark, because you've just made Loki a national fucking celebrity. People are watching _this _bullshit," At last Fury now threw down the newspaper he'd been clutching for the past half hour, which somehow slid with expert precision to a halt right in front of Tony, who turned it around and picked it up without glancing at a word, "and getting all choked up about the guy who killed their kids, just because he was attacked by a national fucking hero in a public coffee shop! You think you're scared? You're Iron Man. You're the only reason half these people felt safe to walk outside after what happened to Manhattan, and now you're the reason they're afraid of the people who are supposed to protect them. It doesn't matter how I cover it up, do you know how badly people want to hate you, Stark? I've been trying to keep you a hero for years and you run out and pull this kind of thing because you're _scared?_"

Ignoring, for the moment, that he hadn't even been the one to say anything about fear, Tony instead devoted his attention to the paper. The headline was pretty blunt- _Iron Man Assaults Civilian_- but he was more interested in the image and the article. Loki was a god. Loki was ridiculously powerful, Loki was capable of surviving a very violent bashing around by the Hulk at his angriest, and yet Loki was lying in a hospital bed with a mask to keep him breathing and bandages ringing his throat. Tony thought he looked awful, but his sympathy was pretty much nonexistent. He was less worried that Loki was doing a poor job of recovering than he was that the newspapers were making such a big deal of it- whoever had written this thing obviously thought he was some kind of martyr.

"Anyone else think it's weird he's going by the name Kaiser? Creepy much," Tony concluded, looking up again to meet Fury's eye. "I don't see how this is a bad thing. I'd rather have people pissed at me than have him wandering the streets. I'll admit, he looks kind of harmless here, but that _is_ Loki, and he's gonna have something up his sleeve."

"This, Stark, is a _very_ bad thing. Their lives are in your hands, and now they don't even trust you. What do you think-"

God _dammit._ "All right, Fury, I was scared. Okay? You never had to fight him. You don't know how easy it would have been for him to just reach out and- snap my neck, or blow that whole place to hell, or make _me_ do it for him!"

Ah, dammit, there it was. Fury's look turned to narrowed but cautious eyes, and Bruce's to some probably misguided sympathy in the form of a rare half-grimace. Clint stopped twirling his arrow abruptly and watched him with a completely blank expression, the only one to hold Tony's eye even for a moment, though he was annoyed to realize they were all trying to manage it. He looked away and muttered a curse under his breath, waiting for someone to speak. Eventually, he saw Clint nod out of the corner of his eye and go back to his arrow twirling, and like that something snapped, the tension spilling away silently.

"What did he do to you, Stark?" Natasha of all people had the sense to ask, leaning forward with slightly narrowed eyes, watching him like something between a cat and a psychiatrist.

Tony felt like he was being put up on display, but he knew his friends too well, by now, to expect they would let this drop. So he let out a frustrated sigh and turned his head away until the question was repeated once more, then glanced back just long enough to see them all looking towards him. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with them all? "He tried to work the mind puppet mojo on me when he showed up at my tower. This thing stopped him, so he threw me out the window. No big deal."

"I don't know, I'm thinking it _was_ a big deal, or you wouldn't have pulled something so god-damn _stupid._" Fury retorted, though he seemed, now, as curious as he was pissed off.

Dammit, Tony _hated_ the way they were looking at him. Especially Clint- after all, did he really have a reason to complain? He hadn't actually been taken over, not like the archer. "He could've done it, Fury. It would've been easy, all he had to do was move the damn staff somewhere else, and what could I have done about it? I'm done making weapons, I don't want somebody turning me into one."

And Loki had been so, so close to doing just that, to grabbing his mind and just _using_ him. He'd heard from Barton just what that felt like, how complete Loki's control was once he got it. You were forced to see exactly what you were doing, but you couldn't even bring yourself to hate it, you just... did it, and so long as it made Loki happy you were glad to.

And fuck, if that idea didn't terrify Tony- he was not the best at making decisions, and he didn't always trust his own mind, but his head was _his_, the only thing he possessed that nobody else had ever pretended a claim to. And then Loki had come along swinging that staff, thinking to make him nothing more than a puppet he could send off on a killing spree. God, to think he might have been made to fight, maybe kill his friends... he didn't doubt that they could have stopped him, but a knock on the head in that situation wouldn't be easy. More likely than not Hulk would've just grabbed him and snapped his spine like a twig if he tried to shoot at him. Tony grimaced at the image and tightened his jaw, refusing to allow Fury any more chance for mocking him over this.

"So what, you were trying to kill him?" This from Clint, again startling everyone with his sudden ability to speak. Tony turned to the archer, unsurprised to find the gaze that met his piercing, not unfriendly but intense enough to leave him uncomfortable. "Or just keep him back? Don't you get it? We send him off to Daddy for a spanking and he comes back in less than a month. I don't care if he's supposed to be a god, I could kill him. Right now, anyone could."

"Did Loki suck up all your common sense when he got into your head, or are you just naturally like that?" Fury snapped, in such a way that Tony had to narrow his eyes further still, even if Clint only perpetuated that blank look. "Nobody is killing him, you got it?"

There was a long silence, the kind that felt like something stretched too thin too fast, and Clint shook his head. The arrow hadn't stopped its turning. "No, I don't."

Well, at least the attention was off him, but Tony still didn't like to wonder what the look on Fury's face meant, or how much that slight crease in Tasha's forehead said about Clint's mental state. "Thought so. Barton, you're on lockdown until further notice, I don't want you leaving base for so much as a second, are we clear?"

"Sure," Clint said with nothing more than a shrug. He waited for more, saw Fury was done, and stood up to leave, stopping beside Tony to glance down at the paper with a wicked sort of smile. "I've got that picture on my fridge."

"You are a man of interesting tastes, Barton, and my interior decorator would probably not agree with any of them. Surprised you didn't blow it up and tape it to your wall."

"The guy at Kinkos wouldn't do it." Clint sounded so wistfully regretful that Tony had to wonder if he weren't actually serious, but the archer was nodding a farewell in that way that said his talking spell was done, and a few seconds later he was gone.

"Well. That was... disturbing," Bruce noted casually, watching him leave.

Natasha did not look happy with the observation, but Tony had to agree, despite the threat of death-by-Russian. Loki's re-appearance was weighing on all of them, but none nearly so hard as Clint. "I think we're done here?"

"Wait, the hell are we going to do about Loki? All we decided is that Clint's probably gone vigilante."

"We've decided, Stark, that's it's _your_ problem," Fury retorted, "and I expect a press release by the evening news. Just smile and make 'em like you, or spend a few weeks locked up for assault while your secretary complains to the big house. Doesn't make a difference to me."

VVV

* * *

A metal hand clamped around the throat was nothing to laugh at- the doctors said Kaiser (or Loki, as he insisted they call him, however they tried to insist he couldn't possibly be a Norse god) had avoided a cracked neck through a practical miracle. Surviving that, half of them were still in shock that his windpipe hadn't been completely crushed, or that he could breathe even with the respirator in the state he was in.

Peter had to agree with them, thinking back to how badly Loki had looked by the time he got back from fighting Iron Man. (And boy, the weirdness of that one wouldn't wear off anytime soon.) The bruises on his neck were nearly black now, but at least some of the color had returned to his skin, and anything was better than seeing all that blood running from his mouth. He'd looked pretty much dead, and they'd all thought he was, until the emergency response had somehow discovered a pulse. Waiting for them, though, was a lot of panic, a lot of failed reassurances to frantic coworkers and customers, and a lot of wondering _why._ From how he'd been speaking, Iron Man had mistaken Loki for some kind of murderer, but he hadn't said who he was supposed to be or why he might be there, just gone in for the almost-kill.

And Loki, when he had finally awakened, was as in the dark as any of them- more, in fact, since he had no idea who Iron man really was. "I have no idea why he might have gone after me. He knew my name, though, so I might be whoever he says I am. Really, I can't remember. I am very sorry."

Same answer, same question. Day after day. Peter was surprised Aunt May hadn't smacked any of these reporters over the head yet, but none of them stayed too long before the hospital staff sent them off, anyway, and Loki seemed too happy about having a name to bother even that he had almost died. Again. Though he did seem to appreciate the pampering- and the nurses. There were probably a million rules against it, but the amount of times Peter had walked in to find Loki lip-locked with some poor girl was an almost painful number. The fact that Loki didn't even know what a relationship was made it pretty hard not to feel sorry for them, but today Peter's only concern was for avoiding Loki's room, not whoever he may be flirting with inside it.

And boy, did that feel weird- standing around in a hospital barring _Tony Stark_ entrance to a patient's room. Normally he would have been relieved to see the guy, but now all he could think was that he was a supposed-to-be-normal boy with no backup except for his nervous-seeming girlfriend attempting to ward off a super hero. A superhero he would normally have done anything to meet, rather than anything to be rid of. Peter wished they could call the cops or staff on this, but Loki had no idea he had a visitor and so couldn't refuse him, and the police had been forced to give up caring once Loki refused to file any sort of charges. Even against Stark there was a case enough to have him dealing with hell for a few weeks at least, but Loki didn't seem to want any kind of vengeance. And, Peter had to admit, he really did not want to be part of something going against Stark, either. Idolization was quick to dwindle, not so quick to vanish.

Especially when said idol was managing to look intimidating, nonchalant, and repentant all at once, even while Gwen was giving him her best 'fuck you' look. "Look, kid, no suit. No press either, so I'm not even getting a publicity boost out of this. So play nice and share your friend, k?"

"My friend is only here because of you. No." Peter couldn't tell if the thing boiling in his chest was anger or some mingled sort of grief, but he hated it, whatever it was. "He's had enough without you, you know. So go, get out, just leave him alone."

"Yeah, I figured all that out, actually. Look, if your pal isn't who I think he is, I want to apologize. If he _is_ the same guy, you'll regret not letting me in that room," Stark retorted, but did not push past Peter or even make the attempt. He seemed willing to go with whatever he was told was alright, and that only made it more annoying, somehow. "Plus there's at least a fifty percent chance I owe him a drink, and it's just gonna get awkward if I wait too long to offer."

"And how are you supposed to tell that? He doesn't remember who he is." But he'd remembered his name, when Stark had said it- didn't that mean he was the same person this man suspected him of being? If that was the case he was a criminal, and one bad enough to have Iron Man losing his cool in a pretty violent way. Peter almost thought he didn't care. If Loki didn't remember committing a crime there was hardly any point in punishing him for it. "He doesn't remember _anything_."

"Fun fact, amnesia is one of the easiest things in the world to pretend to have. A knock on the head's a nice excuse for a second chance."

"Which would mean he wants one."

"Point taken." For a while Stark did nothing but stare, his expression not quite blank but too unfamiliar for Peter to figure out just yet, before ending the stillness with an anticlimactic shrug. "I won't hurt him. If he's not I think he is I won't want to, and if he _is_ I won't be able to. Good enough for you, yet?"

Peter honestly wished it could be- this guy was an idol, a hero, a _good_ person. But so was Doctor Connors. "First tell me who you think he is."

"Can't do that. If I'm right he's someone we want to hush up, not broadcast. Sorry, kid," Stark said, looking not the least bit apologetic. "I can tell you he killed at least eighty people, and one of them a friend of mine. Now are we done here? I don't think I'm a qualified babysitter, I'd rather get in _there._"

"Um- yeah, okay. Fine. We're not leaving you alone though, we're going too." Whatever Stark had to talk about sounded pretty secretive, and Peter wasn't going to even give him the chance to keep them out of that room.

"Whatever you want, kid."

Well, not much else he could do after that, was there? Hospital staff was at the end of the hallway and Peter wasn't actually technically allowed to keep anybody out of the room, so he shuffled off to the side and let Stark through. "I really don't like this. Should I go get May?"

Gwen, wearing that familiar worried little frown. "No, it'll be okay, he doesn't have the suit, i can handle him like this if I need to."

"Peter, you're practically drooling over him."

"Hey, I can prioritize! If he goes after Loki again, I go after him again. I can do that, you know. If he does get violent or anything run and call someone, okay?" War plans against Tony Stark. Who actually did that? Supervillains. And now him, apparently.

He let out a groan of annoyance and confusion, which at least got Gwen to smile, and sidled his own way into the room, only about half a minute behind Stark. The man was standing at the end of the bed, actually quiet, and Loki had given up the book he was currently holding to stare at him, a little paler than normal but not really afraid.

He was, in fact, feeling more nervous for everyone else's sake than his own- Stark was looking rather worn, as though this whole process was bearing down on him one way or another with the social consequences, or perhaps whatever had compelled him to attack in the first place was unnerving him now. And he was certainly upsetting Peter, to no great surprise. How odd that he would be here, now.

"Hey," Stark said at last, shrugging in the silence. "Sorry about choking you. Usually not so rough outside the bedroom."

That... was not something he had tried. And, considering the state of his throat at the moment, not something he _wished_ to try. "You knew my name, I can deal with a little hospital time. We're old friends, this place and I."

"Yeah, so I've heard. That knock on the head wiped away everything?"

"Yes." Not even a hint of his identity, on his body or in his head, until Stark had attacked him. He was hardly going to turn him away in anger for a little beating, now was he? "Even my name. But you knew it. How?"

"What makes you so sure it's your name?" Stark was frowning, looking at his hair and his eyes lie he couldn't quite believe them. "Are you wearin' contacts?"

"No. Why?"

"Nothin'."

"No it's not. And I am sure because I am. It sounds right to me. Do you think it's not mine?" Loki was almost afraid of that- he was _sure_, but Stark was looking concerned. Like he was not so certain himself.

Peter seemed to find solace in this, but Loki felt a moment of panic at Stark's sudden indecision. Loki. A brief word, but one of the few things that had felt right to him, any way or another, in all the time he could remember, and he did not want to lose it. "Nope, not sure. But hey, might be a more common name than I thought, no need to get all identity- crisis on me," the man assured with something of a grimace, which was at least a change. Stark was quite expressive, but in very minute ways thus far, most of which were obscured by those glasses behind which his eyes hid. "Y'know, I might be able to figure out who you are. Or were, depending on your philosophical preference. Little trial and error might be involved, fair warning."

"How do you intend to do that?" Of course Peter and Gwen seemed piqued by suspicion at those words, but Loki was plenty curious enough to sit up attentively, showing Star his consideration for the offer.

"First? Question. Are you evil?"

"That would depend on _your_ philosophical preference, but I've seen little reason to say I am, no."

Stark did smirk at that, though the visible total of his emotion concluded itself in no more than a shrug. "Touche. First test passed, take ten points. Second round up. I want you to come by my mansion, let me run some tests. Best case scenario would be you staying there for a week or two, but I think the over there'd pop a blood vessel if I suggested it."

"You know, that technically _was_ suggesting it," Peter grumbled, in his pleasant half-heartful way. "Uh, no veins bursting, right? That sounds kind of painful."

"Hm, no, you're safe for now." Gwen smiled, and if Loki had paused a moment he might have been able to think of what seemed so off about the look, but Stark had distracted him from such things very thoroughly, and his attention wavered no more than those few seconds.

"No. May would murder me for one thing, and I owe her and Peter plenty more than I could repay from your home." A week, after all, could easily end up a month or more if the right things went wrong. And, though Loki would not mention it, he was not comfortable with the idea of being entirely alone around Stark. "I am sorry, but I thank you for the offer."

"Ouch, and here I thought our relationship had moved so far. I need to get a look at you though- once a week. My place or yours?"

"I don't _have_ a place," Loki pointed out, realizing as he said it that this was rather truer than he would have liked it to be. "I could go wherever you are. Peter, is that-?"

"I'm not your babysitter. But uh, Aunt May might not be too happy. Normally people _avoid_ the houses of guys who tried to kill them."

"_I_ think," Gwen cut in, almost severely, "that you can come by the coffee shop without your suit or anything else and talk to him for awhile and find out what you need from there. Okay?"

"Nothing else? You sure? I mean, didn't see one of those no shirt, no shoes, no service signs, but you can never be too careful."

"Hm, right, we don't really want to see that. Clothes are okay."

Loki didn't know whether to smile at this exchange or shake his head in disbelief, but opted for neither, seeing as had he been in any better health he knew he would have been joining in. Meeting Stark at the cafe? It was hardly a terrifying concept, especially if it would unlock any tell-tale hints of his past. Without that robotic suit he was hardly afraid, and his wariness would be little trouble in a crowded building. Peter didn't look happy about even that, but Loki had to step out of this shadow somehow, and there was no use turning away any chance when it came. "I would be very grateful for that, thank you. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope you don't live too far off."

"I'm the superhero equivalent of a hermit, 'cept I'm secluded on a cliff instead of some gross mountaintop. I'm used to it, I'll manage." Stark assured, pulling out his phone for a few brief moments of tapping before returning the machine to his pocket. "Saturdays, twelve, nice and easy to remember. I think I'll see you then, I should get going before the kid figures out a way for looks to actually kill."

Stark jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Peter, who grimaced almost guiltily but hid it with a shrug. Neither he nor Gwen seemed ready to bid the man farewell politely, so it was Loki to speak the goodbyes as affably as could be managed, even though Stark didn't return the favor beyond a studious look and a sort of absent-minded nod. Loki was less than bothered, and watched the man go with more relief than he would have expected. He knew very little of life in general, but he was beginning to believe his was a very unusual one.

**A/N: -Tosses anticlimactic confetti into the air- Tada. Well okay not much really happened in this chapter, but I had fun writing it, and I hope you all liked it as well. Angry Clint is a very fun Clint to write about.**


End file.
